Hi, John -- I'm Beck, I lead Southern regional organizing at Resource Generation. Last month, we received a call to action from four Black-led southern organizations that have anchored powerful freedom work for decades: The Highlander Center, Southerners on New Ground, Project South, and Alternate Roots. 

These Black-led organizations asked foundations, donor networks, and funders across the country to move $10 million to a new Southern Power Fund by August 31. 

• $8M of this will be redistributed to over 200 Black led organizations across the Southern region. These include organizations like AgitArte, People's Advocacy Institute, Smile Trust, Inc., The Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy, & The Ordinary People's Society (TOPS) and many, many more!
• $2M will seed a community controlled fund that will resource Black, Southern-led organizations with eyes toward the future.

Resource Generation is answering our partners’ call; we’re challenging our network to raise $1M to support Black Southern self-determination! And I for one can’t wait to see us meet this goal. 

As y’all know, Resource Generation is also raising $5M for the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL, one of our national campaign partners), and I want to make it clear that these two goals support and strengthen each other. 

We are asking you all to join us in saying heck yes to both the Southern Power Fund and to M4BL! Both are critical to build long term Black organizing infrastructure and vision.

Why do we need a specific focus on supporting Black Southern organizing? Philanthropy and funders have persistently failed the South.

Growing up and returning to Kentucky after a stint in the northeast, I found myself confronted with a powerful contradiction. I see here in my home and my region some of the most visionary leadership I have ever encountered; people and organizations who have fought for freedom under the most repressive conditions in our country, who have given the world visions and models for organizing that form the foundation of today’s Black liberation struggle. 

At the same time, I’ve seen a deep lack of trust by funders across the country in radical Black Southern leadership -- and in the fundamental value and importance of organizing here. This must change. 

I’ve seen the results of consistent under-funding in our ability to build infrastructure and community safety, for local organizations to be able to adequately support or grow their staff, and for young revolutionary organizers to get the mentorship and development they need without leaving the places they call home. 

It is absolutely my work and the work of other young people with wealth in the South to organize our local funders, foundations, and young people with access to wealth to crush this contradiction and give big to this fund--and I am also calling RGers in places with more resources, more movement infrastructure, and straight up just more money, to do your part.

To quote Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson of the Highlander Center, “‘as goes the South, so goes the nation’ isn’t an opinion; it’s a fundamental fact.” 

So -- you’re in, right? I know I am. If you want to support this fund, here’s what we need you to do:

• Give to the Southern Power Fund!
  • Give at a level that pushes you, that calls you into lifelong commitment to building up Black-led Southern leadership.
  • Track your contributions to the Southern Power Fund here
• Fundraise other people!
  • Choose 5 people in your life to ask to donate, and ask them! 
  • If you’re part of an RG chapter, talk about setting a fundraising goal.
• Keep learning and deepening your commitments to Southern organizing work; check out the resources here to get started. 

Let's do this!

Onward, 
Beck and the RG Team