By Willa Conway It is rare indeed that people give. Most people guard and keep; they suppose it is they themselves that they are guarding and keeping, whereas what they are actually guarding and keeping is their system of reality and what they assume themselves to be. One can give nothing whatever without giving oneself—that…
This post is a part of the blog series and RG campaign, “It Starts Today: Moving $1 Million to Black-Led, Black Liberation Organizing.” Click here for more info on the campaign. What can we as Resource Generation members do to show up for Selma, Alabama and the U.S. South, 50 years after the height of…
by Katherine Wolf and Holly Fetter, Members of the New York City RG Chapter’s Giving and Campaign Committees Thank you to Maurice Mitchell for attending our chapter event on Tuesday, December 9th and for sharing all your insight and passion. This blog post has been heavily influenced by your analysis and your call to action. There’s…
Economic justice is climate justice. These are some reflections as I read Naomi Klein’s newest book “This Changes Everything” about extreme capitalism and the climate crisis. If we meet RG’s mission of redistribution of land, wealth and power, we will also necessarily have contributed to stopping the climate crisis. If we stop the climate crisis,…
We at Resource Generation stand proudly in solidarity with all the actions happening this week in the name of climate justice, and extend our gratitude and support to the incredible amount of labor and organizing that has made it possible. Several RG leaders were on the front lines of civil disobedience today at Flood Wall Street, calling…
Post written by RG staff and board members. Special thank you to board member Nakisha Lewis for kicking this into action. We also released a press release titled “Young People with Wealth Stand in Solidarity with Ferguson, Mo.” inspired by this post. At Resource Generation, we are deeply saddened and outraged over the death of…
July 2nd, 2014- today marks fifty years since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted. In honor of this history, I’d like to tip my hat towards those foundations who funded the civil rights movement that helped make this legislation possible, as part of RG’s Rich Role Models series and RG’s larger vision of…
Adapted from Classified: How to Stop Hiding Your Privilege and Use It for Social ChangeTo go to Adam’s Buzzfeed article with the above title, click here. Hey all. My name’s Adam, and this is a first time post to the RG blog! I’m excited to contribute to a community that has, in a short period…
This post was written by Ashley Horan, James Schaffer, Sarah Abbott, and Isaac Lev Szmonko “Justice was always going to elude Trayvon Martin, not because the system failed, but because it worked. Martin died and Zimmerman walked because our entire political and legal foundations were built on an ideology of settler colonialism — an ideology…
Re-posted from Facebook: A response from Nicole Lewis, former RG staff member and co-author of the forthcoming book “Between a Silver Spoon and the Struggle: Reflections on the Intersection of Racism and Class Privilege.” **** Until the killing of Black men, Black mothers’ sons, is as important as the killing of White mothers’ sons, we…
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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