As a community of young people with access to wealth and class privilege it is essential that we (staff and members) take the time to learn about the Black and Native lead organizing locally and nationally and to support in whatever ways we’re able.
Our member Andrea on leveraging her family’s privilege to support movements fighting to make migration humane and just for everyone.
Will we hide our inheritances and trust funds away in overseas bank accounts and repressed fears? Or will we heed the call of the marginalized everywhere to live into our responsibility and support the creation of a just world?
What guidance would you give to a room full of fundraisers about how to ask you for money? That was the question I tried to answer on a “#RealTalk with Major Donors” panel at the recent Allied Media Conference in Detroit. AMC is a conference led by people of color and queer and trans folks,…
[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.22″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.25″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.4.1″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”] By Jessie Spector, outgoing Executive Director of Resource GenerationWill you join me and thousands of others to give big and bold to social justice now and for the next 4 years?All around the country and the world, people are feeling…
by Ben Goldstein What does it mean to be accountable to a cross-class, cross-generational and multi-racial group raising money for grassroots organizing as a young white man with access to wealth? This is the question I asked myself when I joined the Bread & Roses Giving Project early this year. The Giving Project is a…
by Dominque Tan and Rachel Gelman, Bay Area RG Chapter leaders If a group of poor and indigenous people knocked on your door, would you receive them? If they asked whether you would donate your resources to community reparations, would you?This spring, POOR Magazine challenged both the Bay Area Resource Generation Chapter and the broader…
By Ellie Poley (member Chicago chapter; former member Seattle chapter) IntroductionWhen my wife and I decided to create a bold, radical giving plan, we had to chart our own course because our money comes from monthly paychecks and annual bonuses, not from an existing fund or wealthy family members. I am sharing my approach to…
by Rachel Adler, RG Member Every few months, I’ll make up a batch of my famous caramel corn and invite the Philly chapter of Resource Generation to my house for an hour or so on a weekday evening. A few of them will show up, and we’ll sit on the couch and catch up for…
Farhad Ebrahimi – RG alumni member and long-time major supporter of RG – on strategy and movement-building with his foundation. Lots of juicy nuggets and modeling of social justice values and transparency in philanthropy. This post originally appeared at Medium. Read on! Vivian Huang, Campaign and Organizing Director at Asian Pacific Environmental Network Philanthropy isn’t necessarily known for making long-term…
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.
Click here to continue to RG Action or click close to return to resourcegeneration.org