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NOTE FROM IIMAY HO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF RG
We know we need to move away from donor centrism towards community-centric fundraising. But lately it seems to me that a challenge to centering donors in our work doesn’t go far enough.
In fact, I am against the very use of “donor” as an identity category.
Okay, I know that sounds extreme. I mean, what do I have against being a donor if RG’s key work is to organize wealthy people to...donate? (Practicing social justice philanthropy is obviously way more complicated than that, but still, I do see the irony there.)
What I’m talking about is the conventional practice of using “donors” to mean not a role that anyone can play, but as a code word for “wealthy people.” Using “donors” to refer to class-privileged people is so normalized that we’ve even come up with a different veiled way to refer to people who are more likely to be from poor, working, middle class backgrounds: “grassroots donors.” We know there is explicit classism baked into this hierarchy of donors -- grassroots donors are seen as less important even though poor and working class people give a much higher percentage of their wealth than wealthy people.
But we don’t always appreciate how even the common use of the term “donors” has come to obscure class. Read the rest of Iimay's blog post, "'Donors:' If You Mean Rich People, Just Say So."
***As the first young person of color with wealth to become ED of RG, she will be sharing reflections on living at the intersection of a strange Venn diagram and fighting racism and classism in the Trump era
REGISTER FOR MAKING MONEY MAKE CHANGE!
We're over half-way full, so get to it!
 Join us November 14th-17th for our annual conference, Making Money Make Change (MMMC), as we have conversations on how to leverage class privilege towards social justice, closing the racial wealth divide, and taking meaningful action in this political moment!
We’ll be joined by amazing organizers leading workshops on land returns, building cross-class movements, electoral organizing to build power, how to invest in social change, transformative fundraising, and more.
Learn more and register here at makingmoneymakechange.org!
CHAPTER UPDATES
RG New York City
 The New York chapter has been hard at work wrapping up summer activities and preparing for the fall. The Moving Money Working Group is training chapter leaders for our RG Giving Pledge campaign and our men’s praxis group raised almost $55,000 for reproductive justice organizing.
The Action Working Group launched base-building and mobilization teams and mobilized to pressure ICE to close the detention camps and get out of New York. Over 100 protestors (including 3 RG members) were arrested for blocking the highway next to an ICE office, with support from a big migrant justice rally.
Looking forward we’re planning a moving money co-working cafe, an all-chapter meeting, praxis launch, and a leadership retreat to reflect on this year and plan for 2020.
RG Portland
This month the Portland chapter kicked off a fundraising campaign to support the work of Social Justice Fund NW (SJF), a regional POC-led social justice funder. The campaign has been in the works for months, but now our plans are concrete and we started filling volunteer roles at the most recent chapter meeting!
Over the next 4 months, we will be fundraising and hosting house parties to lift up SJF's work and move resources to them. We also hosted Katie Wang, our chapter's national organizer on staff at RG, for several days for training, leadership meetings, and bonding time! (And, a few of us went with Katie to a counter-protest to stand against the white supremacist group Proud Boys.) Overall, we're energized and ready to move resources and people to SJF's work!
RG D.C.
DC seems to be gathering some exciting momentum lately with a number of projects moving out of the seed stage and into germination. We are focusing time and energy developing and deepening our support and relationship with the Movement for Black Lives DC.
The M4BL/RG DC cohort is kicking off shortly with local partner organization UnDocuBlack; we are in the process of organizing a 'Money Pot' with SURJ DC and M4BL DC to fund basic needs for individual M4BL organizers; a handful of RG members joined in a dinner with BLM DC and SURJ organizers in which we raised $36,000 for BLM DC.
We have 3 praxis groups in process or recently wrapped up (!) and are holding a Giving Plan Workshop on September 3rd to support one another post-praxis and deepen our community.
RG Twin Cities
In August, we pulled off a beautiful event fundraiser with Black Visions Collective, a local M4BL affiliate that RG Twin Cities has been partnering with for the last few years. Our internal fundraising space raised over $23,000, and our rough estimations for our fundraising total (including 1-1 asks in our chapter and networks) are at $50,000!
RG has 16 chapters and college hubs across the U.S.
Learn more and get involved here.
RG AT CENTER FOR POPULAR DEMOCRACY'S
PEOPLE'S CONVENTION!
Last month, we were proud to have sent a delegation of eight RG members and five staff to Center for Popular Democracy’s People’s Convention!!!
This was a big step in developing our national campaign partnership with CPD and in being a visible, organized group of young people with wealth in a space centering poor and working class communities of color.
We also want to thank the RG community for raising $18,835 for the convention, exceeding our goal of $15,000! The funds helped CPD affiliates cover the cost of sending their members to the powerful and transformative in-person gathering.
Check out our blog post with reflections from two RG members Alexis M. (new RG member repping the Bay area chapter!) and Elizabeth B. (Boston chapter leader, member of RG's National Member Council) here!
THANK YOU, SARAH!!!
ICYMI, Sarah Abbott, RG'S Director of Resource Mobilization, has transitioned off of the staff after a tenure of 8 years. Sarah leaves a powerful legacy at RG, having been the first for so much of our work -- our first full-time chapter organizer, first staff support person for college organizing, first Chapter Organizing Director, and our first Director of Resource Mobilization. She has been dedicated to building member power and leadership, and was key in envisioning and developing our Transformative Leadership Institute and the National Member Council.
As the Director of Resource Mobilization she worked closely with members to launch the Giving Pledge and Giving Guidelines. We are deeply grateful for the all of the ways Sarah has shaped RG’s growth, political clarity, and culture and wish her all the best as she joins the Sunrise Movement as the new Team Support and Culture Director.
Sarah shares, “RG has been my political home for the past decade, and I cannot express the gratitude that I feel to this organization for the ways it has shaped me and has challenged me to grow and learn. Working with members and member leaders has been the best part of my work on staff, and I have deep admiration and appreciation for the labor and brilliance that you each bring to the work of redistributing land, wealth, and power. Thank you for committing to this organization. This work has made my life immeasurably better, and it has been built by so many hands. I'm leaving RG to step into the role of Team Support and Culture Director at the Sunrise Movement, helping build the 2-year-old climate justice organization as it grows and scales rapidly. I look forward to continuing to build power alongside RG toward a world beyond capitalism, in which all people and the planet can thrive.”
Thank you, Sarah!!!
FROM PARTNERS
- BYP 100 and Black August: Black August is a time to engage in political education and commemorate Black resistance over time. Join BYP100 on Thursday, August 29th at 7pm ET, for a special Black August #SheSafeWeSafe webinar that will focus on how the prison system reproduces gender violence by perpetrating sexual violence, misgendering trans folks in violent ways, and creating its own sickening power structure within the walls of its cages. We will also delve into how Black women, both cis and trans, and gender non conforming people have resisted this over time.
- Members of Resource Generation are invited to attend Way Forward, a convening of Way to Win's power network of donors and movement leaders! Members of RG can now register for $500 off by using code "WelcomeRG" at checkout. The hotel room block has been extended to Aug 30 so don’t delay!
- Also: Iimay Ho, RG's Executive Director, will speak on Tuesday's closing plenary about the growing movement to support a collective theory of change that communities committed to racial, economic, gender, and climate justice have the wisdom to lead our nation toward a north star where all communities have the opportunity to thrive!
- New from Movement for Black Lives: Reparations Toolkit
RG OUT AND ABOUT, IN THE NEWS, AND ON OUR BLOG!
RG IS HIRING!
Learn more about RG membership here!
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