Philly RG testifies for Affordable Housing
In January 2016, RG Philly created a Political Action working group, to discern our role in and take action on local economic and racial justice campaigns. We went through a…
RG-PHILLY!
We are RG Philly and we are so happy you have landed on our webpage. Maybe you have suddenly gained access to a trust fund. Maybe you know that you’re going to inherit family wealth in a few years. Maybe you find yourself in a position of class privilege in the largest poor city in the country. Maybe you don’t know what to do with this access to wealth, but you suspect there are better uses for it than letting it sit in a vault. Whatever the reason that brings you here, we are glad that your explorations have led you to Resource Generation.
Resource Generation (RG) is a community of young people with wealth or class privilege organizing ourselves toward the equitable redistribution of wealth, land, and power. We move personal and family wealth to partner organizations while educating ourselves on the socioeconomic systems that lead to inequality and how to undermine them. For over a decade RG Philly has carried out Resource Generation’s mission on a local scale, working to make Philadelphia a more equitable place for all who call it home.
What Does RG Philly Do?
Praxis: Praxis is a word that means the process of engaging with and practicing theories, lessons, and skills. Every year, RG Philly runs Praxis sessions for young people with wealth or class privilege to reflect on and process their access to wealth. Throughout this six month praxis, cohorts of eight to ten young people operationalize their values, consider what wealth redistribution might look like for themselves, and then make plans for how they want to move their money, all in a supportive environment. Everyone’s giving plan is unique, but many RGers move money toward one or more of our partner organization projects below.
Poor People’s Army: The Poor People’s Army is a collective that provides on the ground community services to Philadelphia’s underserved Kensington neighborhood, among many, many other things. They are one of RG Philly’s longest standing partnerships. In 2024, RG Philly worked with the Poor People’s Army to raise $150,000 toward the purchase of a community center, so that they will have a permanent base of operations in Kensington for generations to come.
Philadelphia Community Bail Fund: Philadelphia has a cash bail system, which means that many Philadelphians are in jail for months at a time without ever being convicted of a crime, simply because they cannot pay their bail. The cash bail system separates families and disrupts homes. RG Philly holds biannual fundraisers for the Philadelphia Community Bail Fund around Mother’s Day and around the winter holiday season to bail out Black mothers and jailed youth, respectively. These fundraisers reunite families navigating the criminal legal system.
Freedom Side School: Freedom Side School is a free, abolitionist K-5 school for children directly impacted by mass incarceration, set to welcome its first class of students in 2026. RG Philly has partnered with Freedom Side School to ensure that the school has three years worth of funding by the time the school is ready to open, so that Freedom Side can focus its energy on the students, the curriculum, and on building the next generation of abolitionists.
And So Much More!
RG Philly is not just a donor network and not just a study group. We organize our base to become leaders and organizers. We are active participants and partners to our partner organizations. In addition to praxis, RG members have numerous opportunities throughout the year to plug into a community of like-minded individuals figuring out how to use privilege and access for good, from taking on working-group roles with our partner organizations to facilitating our meetings, retreats, or workshops. There’s never a bad time to find your way into movement work. If you think that RG Philly has something to offer you, it does, and we hope that you join us at our next event and in our next campaign.
How To Get Involved With RG Philly
In January 2016, RG Philly created a Political Action working group, to discern our role in and take action on local economic and racial justice campaigns. We went through a…
by Ben Goldstein What does it mean to be accountable to a cross-class, cross-generational and multi-racial group raising money for grassroots organizing as a young white man with access to…
by Rachel Adler, RG Member Every few months, I’ll make up a batch of my famous caramel corn and invite the Philly chapter of Resource Generation to my house for…
Written By RG Philly Chapter Leaders Kate Poole, Sarah Burgess & Julia Stone In this EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW, Robin Hood talks with Prince John about his recent transformation and decision to…
On May 17, members of Philadelphia’s RG Chapter turned out to the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education rally to demand more funding for public schools, charter school…
The Philadelphia chapter of Resource Generation was recently published in the Non-Profit Quarterly, Philly.com, and Newsworks.org writing about how traditional philanthropy is harming Philly schools. They call for higher taxes…
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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