A note from Elspeth Gilmore, Resource Generation’s outgoing Executive Director: Hi Friends of Resource Generation, Having been a proud member of the Resource Generation staff for the past 6 years, I am transitioning off of staff this spring. I’m looking forward to opening the door for a new young leader to step up. Needless to…
let me introduce myself – my name is anna genevieve winham and while my bio on the “About Us” page gives a few more details, i’m basically a rich kid who has a lot of problems with both the fact that “rich kids” exist and the systems through which i became one. i’m a brit,…
I’m not one to brag about myself. But that is exactly what I am going to do right now. I am going to brag about my class background. Because sometimes, it’s rough to be the only middle class person of color on a staff that is predominantly white and of upper class. It’s not a…
For a long time, I thought that as a white, wealthy woman, there was no role for me in working to end racism and economic injustice. I tried doing service provision in low-income communities of color, and the “white savior” dynamics of that work felt disheartening. I was involved in anti-violence and queer organizing on…
2012 has been a transformative year so far. I moved across the country from Seattle to New York, started a new job at Resource Generation organizing young people of color with wealth, and turned thirty. I was excited to step into the unknown, and ready to take on big challenges. I expected that there would…
Hi RG community, I am thrilled to join the staff of Resource Generation, at this particular moment, to organize young people of color with wealth. I just moved to New York City after 6+ years in Seattle and I’m grateful to be inheriting a body of work from Nicole Lewis and many others in RG’s…
It is spring of 2008, and I am giving a workshop on prison industrial complex abolition at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. We start by asking participants, “What makes you feel safe?” There is a wide range of answers, from “my friends” to “having healthcare” to “self-defense classes” to “knowing my parents could support me in…
I love the crap out of rich people. RG has helped show me that. Meeting dozens and dozens of wealthy people, each and every one who is smart, thoughtful, and wanting so badly to do right by the world—time and time again, I am bowled over by the sheer magnitude of kindness and generosity in…
Hello RG Community, We have some updates on staffing we want to share with you. We are excited to announce that we have hired Sarah Schwartz Sax as our new Creating Change Through Family Philanthropy (CCTFP) Retreat Director and Richard Graves as our new Family Philanthropy Organizer. Sarah has been a leader in RG for…
Taij Moteelall, RG’s former director, shares some reflections on her time with RG below. Reposted from the Power Up Networks Blog. As the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon grows in NYC, spreads throughout the United States and across the globe, I wonder what kind of a world will be rebuilt post-corruption, greed, and injustice that sparked this movement. How…
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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