**This email was originally sent out without attribution to our Resource Mobilization Director, Leah V.**
One year ago, as we reflected on October 7 and the unfolding of the most recent chapter in the genocidal war on Palestine, we told our Resource Generation community that “We are proud to be part of a community organizing towards justice with profound and unwavering determination.”
One year later, with compounding and unutterable heartache and devastation over the tens of thousands of beloved souls lost in Gaza and the ongoing horror of this genocide, this statement has never been more true. Over the last year, our staff and members have mobilized financial resources for Gaza, particularly through our partner Grassroots International’s Palestine Emergency Fund, participated in civil disobedience in our nation’s capital and around the country, engaged in powerful advocacy and activism to transform the world of philanthropy, took part in Palestine Solidarity Action Hours, and organized each other to financially divest from genocide and militarism - among many other powerful acts of solidarity.
I mention these actions not to boast about our members’ accomplishments, because all acts of solidarity, however important, will always feel small and insignificant in the face of so much destruction and loss of life—but because I believe they illustrate what is possible when we locate our solidarity within a political home. adrienne maree brown has written that political home is “a place where we ideate, practice and build futures we believe in, finding alignment with those we are in accountable relationships with, and growing that alignment through organizing and education.” It is our hope that with this year’s Fall Drive and Making Money Make Change, we are leaning into this exact vision of political home: building futures outside of militarism, ideating on divestment and reinvestment, recommitting to our collective accountability through membership, and deepening our own learning through political education.
I hope you will join me on October 1 to learn from other members’ experience divesting their financial resources away from extraction and genocide, and on October 9 to learn from our partners the New Economy Coalition and Seed Commons about pathways to reinvestment in solidarity and community. And of course, I hope you will join RG at Making Money Make Change this November, where we will feature an in-person redux of our Embodied Divestmentworkshop, take collective stock of our current movement landscape, and again commit to mobilizing significant resources for Palestine.
On a personal note—I was humbled and grateful to be able to sign onto the open letter from Jews in philanthropy, speaking out against the retaliation experienced by many organizations supporting and funding Palestinian solidarity, and proud to know that the RG community stood alongside me in envisioning a different, liberatory world where resources are not hoarded, politically constrained, or used to further genocide and apartheid. I am also deeply inspired by the work of the In Our Name Campaign, led by Jews in philanthropy (many of them RG members), to mobilize resources for Palestine and Palestinian solidarity movements as an expression of our deepest held values. I hope you join me for their launch call on September 24 to learn more.
We know that despair and apathy are all too easy traps to fall into, particularly for those with class privilege, and that this political moment requires our continued action and steadfastness. We also know that it is through community and political home that we find the vision, accountability, and tools to keep showing up and throwing down where we can—with profound and unwavering determination.
Upcoming Drive events:
In solidarity,
Leah V.
Resource Mobilization Director
