Holy cow. It’s been a little over a month since I became Interim Co-Director of Resource Generation, and just a few short weeks since Elspeth and I found out we would be co-directors. What a whirlwind. I’ve been wanting to write this post for a while. Capture my thoughts and share with my community as…
Check out this new article from RG board member Dev Aujla! Reposted from Wednesday’s Huffington Post. Close to three years ago, I stumbled into the organizing world for what was originally supposed to be a getaway in West Virginia for a conference called ‘Leveraging Privilege for Social Change’. I was expecting a week away from email,…
I remember thinking that I had been hired to teach them something. I was a sophomore in college and I had been hired to be a Summer Resident Assistant for a youth program that wanted to save 100 “at-risk” young people of color in Dallas, Texas. I had been hired to transform the lives of…
two things have been on my mind a lot lately. one, the US Social Forum- particularly the conversations, workshops, and organizing around funding and being in the movement as someone with money, white skin, and class privilege. two, the reading i’ve been doing lately on the mississippi freedom summer of 1964. i’m connecting a lot…
I was reading over the notes from Resource Generation’s final delegation meeting at the US Social Forum 2010 this morning and one question seemed apropos to this posting, “How can we leverage our privilege to support Detroit?” This is one example. It started with liquidating some of the community investment notes I had with the…
After some necessary prodding from the delightfully persistent Mike G, I am finally posting some reactions I had to Creating Change through Family Philanthropy. This is partly me calling myself out — one step towards being accountable to myself and others. But I digress. That’s not the place to start… Creating Change through Family Philanthropy…
Reflections from Lillian Birchall, RG Member Attending the Creating Change Through Family Philanthropy Retreat changed my life. I was nervous before attending the retreat, but from the moment I walked in, I felt as though I could finally share a secret that I had been hiding for many years. Being around other young people who are…
Notes on last weekend’s Boston House Party from former RG Fellow Pete Redington (www.affluentangst.wordpress.com) … “Hi Pete. I’m Tracy.” I nearly choke on my absolutely outstanding lemonade as I, in turn, read the nametag of the unassuming party guest in front of me: Tracy Hewat. Tracy Hewat!? The Tracy Hewat?! Founding member of Resource Generation?!…
Really. Retreat Reports can be hot. This one definitely is. It will make you smile, inspire you, and make you wanna call a friend. Really. We have just finished our 2010 Creating Change Through Family Philanthropy Retreat Report and are (clearly) happy to share it with you! The Creating Change Through Family Philanthropy Retreat is…
Reflections from Ginger Hintz, RG Family Philanthropy Fellow, 2009-10 Understanding and unpacking how class affects your life is hard. It’s a never-ending process of exhuming social constructions and calibrating those signifiers to your personal experiences. It’s a dance of nuance, assimilation, and struggle. Awareness does not guarantee you won’t get stepped on or find yourself…
We hold the liberation of Black and Indigenous people as central to the liberation of all people. We know that attempted genocide and chattel slavery created the initial foundation for massive wealth disparity in the U.S. and that the continued exploitation and criminalization of those communities upholds the racial wealth divide. We believe that well-resourced Black and Native Left organizing is a critical part of how we all get more free.
We believe social justice movements need to be led by communities most directly impacted by injustice. As young people with access to wealth, we choose to undermine the pattern of funders dictating the work and instead choose to follow the leadership of transformative social justice movements and communities, led by people who are: poor, working-class, Black, Indigenous, of color, women, disabled, queer and trans.
We work towards eradicating classism and towards wholeness. We believe that all classes and communities are interconnected and interdependent and that classism has been used to wedge and divide us. We know that much is lost communally in the name of wealth accumulation and that people with wealth have a lot to gain from returning wealth to the collective and transforming our economy. We know that the current economic system is untenable, and we work to build a solidarity economy.
We believe that people ages 18–35, with wealth and class privilege, are at a pivotal stage in life to make a lifelong commitment to social movements. Youth movements and organizing are, and have been bold and visionary. We are building on the legacy of those who came before us, and we are working for a better world for those who will come after. Young people with access to wealth and class privilege need to be organized as protagonists—actively engaging in and seeking out ways that leverage and redistribute our access to power and resources within our control, and redirect resources and power within the networks and institutions we are connected to. We are committed to resisting ageist norms of people acquiring power and holding on to it and constantly doing leadership development to bring about new leadership.
We believe personal and structural change are deeply connected, and every person has the ability to heal and grow. We are committed to working towards transforming ourselves, our organizations, our communities, and society as a whole through our work. We bring our full selves, our experiences, our stake, and our strategic thinking to build cross-class relationships in working for a just and livable world.
We believe in collective and individual growth, groundedness and interdependence. We know that tensions will arise, and we will approach these with curiosity on behalf of our personal and collective wants. We will work to see tensions as generative rather than destructive and finite. We welcome principled disagreement and will strive to keep conflict generative in service of our broader goals and mission.
We believe in the power of collaboration across class, race, and movements. We know that our vision depends on our relationships with communities, organizations and people across our movement ecosystem, with whom we share similarities and differences. Through our organizing work we also seek ways to invite our families, communities, and other people with access to wealth to this work.
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