I am writing to open a conversation about what it’s like to live and work rurally and be engaged as an activist with Resource Generation. At this point I have more questions than answers, but I hope telling my story and asking these questions may provoke some thoughts, ideas, or dialogue in the community. This…
Three years ago, I decided to go to Making Money Make Change, the annual conference put on by Resource Generation. I know that I will inherit wealth in the future, so I decided to go to the conference to start thinking about this privilege, about my family, and my own access to wealth. I wanted…
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…
Note: Nicole is former staff, current member leader and author of our recent book, Between the Silver Spoon and the Struggle: Reflections on the Intersection of Racism and Class Privilege. This interview is reposted from BlackGivesBack.com.Between a Silver Spoon and The Struggle: Reflections on the Intersection of Racism and Class Privilege is the newly released…
by Jessica Rosenberg This post was written in response to a call for RG blog submissions on the topic of “Giving and Spirituality”. The prompt was: How does your spiritual or religious practice influence how you think about giving, how you give, how you share/talk about your giving, and who you give to? How does spirituality…
This article is reposted from Jessie’s personal blog from 12/24/2013 Its that time of year when there is an all-time high of people in my community asking my opinion about giving and charity. I’m writing this for my personal blog, but in such a way that I hope it is shareable with all of our…
Note: These thoughts are mine and not RG’s as a whole, RG policy or anything of the sort. Important questions that complicate my argument are at the bottom. I wanna start a conversation. It touches on one of the issues I have struggled with ((In my twenties I worked a low-paying job with Americorp, part-time…
Liz Sullivan is on RG’s Board, and is a leader in our work with partners of young people with wealth. I didn’t ease gracefully into being a partner of a young person with wealth. It was more like I stumbled and landed into the identity with a thud, a bewildered look of “how did I…
This post is written by Emily Duma and Joe Kruse, two members of the RG Leadership Team in Minneapolis, MN. EMILY : Living in an intentional community, I get a lot of strange looks from relatives when I explain what I’m doing with my life. And when I tell them that I share money with…
I attended my first Resource Generation retreat, Making Money Make Change, in the Fall of 2010 at a retreat center nestled in the redwoods outside of San Jose, California. I spent those four days immersed in the stories of young people with wealth taking bold action, learning about powerful organizing across the U.S., getting to tell…
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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