As I write this, my heart is heavy with the supreme court decisions from this week. If you’re looking for a place to start in taking action following the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, check-out the email we sent out earlier this week. I am also filled with energy and a deep knowing that our movements will overcome this moment, build power, and bring about a liberated future. I must admit, I am feeling pulled between the urgency of this moment and staying the course for the long haul. I also know it’s not either/or, rather, it’s both/and. It’s this kind of outside-the-binary thinking that makes feminist organizations like ours more human, more adapatable, and more creative. 

Two weeks ago, RG staff, board, and National Member Council members gathered virtually and in-person for a joint meeting to move forward the development of our strategic framework. Over the last six months, a representative Strategic Planning Committee has hosted five strategic conversations, and been working through key questions to guide the next chapter of our organization. We came in with a close-to-final draft, and engaged in nuanced and robust conversations about questions like “what’s the role for alumni? should we organize more men? what could a national campaign look like?”

Some of these questions we will be able to answer well-enough for now. But others will be more dynamic, changing, or even unanswerable. More than anything, we came together to build relationships with each other and build trust across these three different leadership bodies in the organizations. 

I have to say, as someone who participated in-person, it was life-giving and game-changing after more than two years of remote-only work. From being able to see the nuances in people’s communication, to sharing laughter, to late nights of meandering conversation about life and organizing, these interactions did so much to deepen trust and connection to carry me through months more of remote work. 

This week, the Strategic Planning Committee will meet with our consultants at Dragonfly Partners for the last time. Over the summer, we will be finalizing and approving the Strategic Framework across the three different bodies. From there we will be sharing it out with you, our community of members and stakeholders, and designing the team that will be facilitating both the implementation of it and creating processes to answer the inevitable emergent strategic questions. 

No matter what, I know this next chapter of our organization will be a bold practice of co-governance across staff, board, and member leaders. Collaboration can be a challenge in the ways it necessarily slows processes down and can strain relationships, but it is also our greatest strength as movements fighting for deep democracy and recognizing the inherent worth and dignity of every person. When we are aligned and committed to shared purpose, we are unbreakable. 

Funding abortion is more important that ever! RG members are leading a campaign to collectively move $1 Million to the National Network of Abortion Funds & local abortion funds over the next 3 years. Please check out our campaign resources:

• Zine microsite: fundabortionnow.us
• Campaign kick-off event video: tinyurl.com/RGReproJusticeNNAFPanelRec
  

Please consider getting plugged into other parts of the reproductive justice ecosystem: https://tinyurl.com/RGReproJusticeEventTracker

Learn how to best show up during this current moment:

• https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2022/06/02/for-decades-weve-helped-open-abortion-access-heres-where-well-go-post-roe/
• https://jezebel.com/please-stop-using-coat-hangers-to-protest-abortion-bans-1848820926

NC Triangle met at a member's house in Durham for a delicious potluck chapter meeting. We were delighted to welcome 3 first-time attendees! The theme of the evening was processing emotion and creating structure around direct asks for aid and unexpected asks, both as individuals and as a chapter. Prior to the chapter meeting, several members met virtually for a second co-working session focused on developing giving plans and other practical giving-centered research.

The chapter's Praxis group also met virtually for the 4th of 6 meetings, enjoying an excellent presentation by Jillian White of North Star Fund on defining one's giving. We continue to explore our goals for the chapter and have several team funding projects in the works (stay tuned!).

\We have submitted our paperwork to become an official chapter, and plan to celebrate our new status this fall. It’s been 6 (!!) years in the making but we’re here! Still meeting monthly; just had a powerful open workshop session and have planned out the rest of our year, including how we will participate in Reparations Summer. Grateful and excited!

Reparations Summer is Here! 

We invite you to join fellow RG community members participating in Reparations Summer to help move mass amounts of wealth to Black-led land-based movements! 

Reparations Summer is a movement building project answering a call from the Black diaspora in the US for Reparations Now. 

All funds generated from the Reparations Summer campaign will go to Drinking Gourd, a network of Black LGBTQI land stewards guided by Afro-Indigenous healing traditions and land ways. 

Reparations Summer is born out of the Black Land & Liberation Initiative, which incubates land networks for 3-5 years. The annual Reparations Summer Campaign first launched in 2020. Several RG members are apprentices in this work of Reparations. We invite you to join us this year in moving millions of dollars to self-determined Black LGBTQI land stewards across the country.

If you’re interested in learning more, moving money, or organizing your networks for this campaign, sign up here for a conversation with someone from RG involved in Reparations Summer 2022.

This is a great fit for someone with a couple of years planning (and winning!) issued-based campaigns, someone who sees an organizing experiment and jumps on it, and someone who has a vision for how to drive a wedge in the owning class to take action on the side of justice.  

RG’s Student Organizing Fellowship is a 14-month, paid leadership role created to support, deepen, and expand RG’s work on college campuses across the country. We’re looking for 3-5 students and/or recent grads who can each commit up to 10 hours weekly to national student organizing during the 2022-2023 (September - November) school year. 

RG Student Organizing Fellows will receive a sliding-scale stipend (self-selected pay on a scale of $25-40/hour), organizing training, political education, and leadership development. Find more info in the role description and email [email protected] with any questions.

As one of the largest funders of the RJ movement, Groundswell is ready for this moment. Over the last two decades, we’ve built a system to resource reproductive and social justice movements becoming a channel into which individual donors and foundations can pour resources to reach vital work at the grassroots. RG members can support Groundswell’s vital work by donating directly and by signing onto the philanthropic pledge to protect abortion access and reproductive justice.

EVENT: Fight the Right, Fund Abortion Webinar

Wednesday, July 6, 4-6 PT / 7-9 ET

If the impending SCOTUS decision on abortion mobilizes progressives, it would be the Right’s worst nightmare. 

For 50+ years the Right’s political strategy has relied on framing abortion as a moral issue, consistently using it to brazenly galvanize their base  - and they’ve come to rely on progressive funders and institutions avoiding reproductive issues at every turn. At this moment of crisis, we can’t play into the latest version of this strategy. 

We know the SCOTUS decision is coming and that it will almost definitely overturn Roe v Wade. Understanding what it means, how it affects all of us, and the power analysis that we can use in our response as donors - we can respond with strategy of our own, that builds power across communities, strengthens our movements, and weakens the Right. 

This workshop is for you if...  

• You are new to funding reproductive rights and eager to/step up your funding in this area with clear strategies under your belt;
• You care deeply about reproductive rights and are looking for a way to help other progressive donors understand why we must all care about the loss of reproductive health access.
• You’re concerned about the rise of white nationalism and authoritarianism and want to consider what this ruling might mean for the country. 

As one of the largest funders of the RJ movement, Groundswell is ready for this moment. Over the last two decades, we’ve built a system to resource reproductive and social justice movements becoming a channel into which individual donors and foundations can pour resources to reach vital work at the grassroots. RG members can support Groundswell’s vital work by donating directly and by signing onto the philanthropic pledge to protect abortion access and reproductive justice. 

1. Move $$ to abortion funds (& track your gift / pledge here) in any or all of the following ways - 
   1. Give general operating dollars directly to NNAF at nnaf.org/resourcegeneration
   2. Give to NNAF’s Collective Power Fund at nnaf.org/resourcegenerationcpf which will be redistributed to member funds
   3. Give directly to your local Abortion Fund
      
      
2. Share our campaign microsite fundabortionnow.us with your networks & encourage them to move $$! We have an outreach toolkit here with graphics & copy available for you to use.
   
3. Email [email protected] if you would like to join the organizing team or if you have any questions or comments.

We encourage you to consider joining RG as a dues paying member, and if you would like to get involved in your local chapter, please fill out this intake form!

Resource Generation
1216 Broadway
New York, NY 10001
United States

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