Keep up this momentum & commit to movements

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 coming presidential administration to align with the social justice movement’s vision of resourced, safe, and powerful communities. Beyond who won specific races, this election was a huge win for our movements and so many people joined organizations to get out the vote and build local power. Our national campaign partners, Movement for Black Lives and Center for Popular Democracy have been making it clear that all across the country it was Black, Brown, Indigenous, and working-class communities of color who carried the victories across the finish line. So in addition to thanking the leadership of Black women and other BIPOC grassroots leaders that made this happen, let’s acknowledge that thanks alone aren’t enough — we need to put in the work to win transformative systemic change and policies that help us all be more free. 

***
Our role as a multi-racial community of young people with access to wealth committed to the equitable distribution of wealth, land, and power is to divest from racial capitalism and white supremacy — and to be doing this work year-round and for the long haul.

During this election season, the RG community showed up in force to phonebank for campaign partner groups based in Detroit and Georgia, and were part of important resource mobilization efforts to move unrestricted dollars to frontline organizers. We’re grateful for how so many of you threw down to back social justice movements this year. 

And households of all racial backgrounds with a family income of more than $100K voted in double-digit margins for Trump. It’s clear that classism, wealth accumulation, and white supremacy are deeply intertwined and work together to further wealth inequality and racial capitalism. [1]

Our role in movements has to be about more than any single individual or candidate, and it also is about more than mobilizing from a place of guilt or shame. We must organize to transform the conditions that make it possible for wealthy people to take refuge in wealth hoarding and systems of supremacy. To do this we act in solidarity with poor and working class-led movements who are building a world that is equitable and just, where we can all thrive. 

***

Keep up this momentum – wealth inequality can end with our generation. 

Through our Giving Pledge work, we’re on track to collectively move $50M to social justice organizing this year. That’s just the beginning of what we think this community can do to resource social justice movements when aligned with our Giving Guidelines. 

Throughout the RG community, we center movement leadership and vision while building deeply within our wealthy communities, acknowledging real fears and concerns while modeling a transformative path forward. To young people with access to wealth and class privilege, we present alternatives to scarcity, individualism, and competition.

In the weeks ahead, let’s continue to follow the leadership of our campaign partners and show up when called. 

Looking towards the first 100 days of the next presidential administration, we will be fighting alongside our partners for direct relief to the millions of people still suffering from the bottomed-out economy of an uncontrolled pandemic; rejoining the global community in taking action on climate change; and making lasting change to address state violence against Black people through measures like Movement for Black Lives’ the Breathe Act.

For the long-term, let’s build authentic cross-class relationships; redistribute wealth and fund frontline organizations and movements; and join in the collective multi-racial, multi-class struggle for liberation

 

1. Financial Times: By numbers: how the US voted in 2020, 11/7/2020