From Resource Generation Board Member, Mac Liman: As I write this, my heart is full picturing the faces and remembering the stories of the many hundreds of RGers I have met since my first MMMC conference in 2005 at age 23. I write to you now, at age 40, as a proud RG alum and…
Table of Contents For a PDF version of our 2021 Annual Report click here. Letter from the Executive Director In my first introduction to our annual report as Executive Director, I can’t help but think about where we were as an organization in 2015, when I joined staff. We didn’t yet have national campaign partners….
Time is weird, it can feel both fast and slow all at once. This has felt especially true over the last two years but has always felt true for me when it comes to Resource Generation. Being in the work, it can feel like it takes so long for an idea to become reality. And…
The plan for this blog post was to share some updates with the RG community about strategic planning, and I still plan on doing that. But not today. Today the people of Ukraine and Russia are living through a war. A war I am so far from geographically, that I don’t understand politically, and yet…
It’s hard to believe that this is my last blog post as the Executive Director of Resource Generation. I have truly been transformed by my RG journey, from joining the DC chapter in 2013 to moving into my Associate Director role in 2014 to becoming the Executive Director in 2017. I have built lifelong friendships,…
It’s a time of transition! Iimay Ho, Executive Director, and Kaitlin Gravitt, Organizing Director will be leaving the RG staff after 7 years of tenure on June 30. Faisal Alam, Deputy Director, will be moving into the Interim Executive Director role as we finalize the search for the next permanent Executive Director, and we are…
We are relieved that a ceasefire has been agreed to in Israel/Palestine and recognize that it is insufficient in transforming the material conditions of Palestinians and challenging the systems that uphold occupation and apartheid. We are grieving the lives lost in past weeks, and remain clear that our community, and young people with wealth, have…
Now is the time to get involved with and fund poor and working-class led organizations doing year-round social justice work and focus on building power with communities who hold our elected officials accountable. Strong poor and working-class led organizations and communities are critical not just to beat back the worst threats but to challenge the…
A note from RG’s board co-chairs: We are writing to inform you that, following an exceptional tenure, Iimay Ho will be leaving the role of Executive Director of Resource Generation in summer of 2021. We are grateful for Iimay’s thoughtfulness in giving the organization plenty of time to plan and implement the hiring process for…
I spent most of last weekend in a puddle of sadness and overwhelm. Nothing was okay. Nothing I did mattered. Ominous Election Day countdown emails crowded my inbox (26 days until the apocalypse!). I had a meltdown about accidentally buying chicken sausage instead of pork sausage (true story). Does this sound familiar to you? Perhaps…
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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