As young people with access to wealth, we want to amplify what Black people and communities of color have long said: police officers as a part of the state exist to protect whiteness and wealth at the expense of everyone else, especially Black people. We are updating resources to support the Movement or Black lives…
Pandemics are an acute crisis. They put a highlighter on the racial and economic inequities that are chronic, ongoing crises. During this time, Johns Hopkins is keeping a tally of the confirmed cases and deaths from Covid-19. There are terrifying estimates but there is no ticker measuring the suffering and lives lost to poverty globally…
Introducing RG’s inaugural 2019-2020 RG Student Organizing Fellows! Student Organizing Fellows will be supporting RG student leaders on college campuses across the country to build strong relationships across class, bring more wealthy and class-privileged students into movements for racial and economic justice, and learn and develop skills along the way. I’m grateful to Harshita, Rose,…
Resource Generation stands in solidarity with the ongoing active resistance movements at the border, in Puerto Rico, and Hawai’i’s Mauna Kea. These struggles are power struggles that are inextricable from systemic wealth inequality, white supremacy, and colonization. In each of these resistances, people with wealth and power are trying to impose their agendas through force…
As a non-wealthy staff member, RG is unique to me because I don’t know any entity where highly privileged folks gather to attempt to change some of the most challenging social issues facing our country. No matter how messy it has been, this work is a necessity.
When elected officials put wealth-hoarding of the rich over the most basic human needs of the many, young people with wealth have a critical role in pushing back.
I was born in Colorado into a white, working-class family, and for most of my life, was raised by my Dad and helped to raise my two younger siblings. My family had housing stability, consistent food, and safety, but we went through a few stretches of turning to free lunches and food stamps. I hated…
On behalf of the Resource Generation Board of Directors, we are thrilled to announce our unanimous decision to hire Iimay Ho as RG’s new Executive Director. This decision is the culmination of months of work by the board, including consultation with partners, members, and advisors. Thanks to all who helped with the process and spread…
I was deep in the new economy and localism scene when I finally connected with Resource Generation in 2013. I had been working on local investment issues, and how to connect local investors with local businesses. Behind the scenes I was working on convincing my family that our assets, or at least any capital in…
Some suggested holiday reading: a few articles to help the RG community continue to understand the connections between the banner of “Black lives matter” (including the origins of the hashtag) to other movements for justice, and what it means to be an ally. ~ 5 Tips for Being an Ally (Chescaleigh: video)“All [privilege] means is there…
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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