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NOTE FROM IIMAY HO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF RG
During these chaotic times I find myself going back to and looking for the people, organizations, and spiritual guidance that I trust.
I also think of adrienne maree brown’s reminder to “move at the speed of trust”, and know that trust is one of our most precious resources in organizing. “Trust” is also a word we imbue with much weight and meaning but means very different things to different people. As we navigate power and systems of oppression both within organizations and movements for justice and externally in the world, building and maintaining trust feels more important than ever.
And yet I’ve found myself in tense conversations about broken trust without shared language or understanding of what that means. That’s why I found it so helpful when at a recent staff retreat our facilitator, Krystal Portalatin, shared the following tool around the 4 Distinctions of Trust. Check out the rest of Iimay's blog post, "Building trust and being trustworthy as a young person with wealth."
***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
TAKE ACTION IN SOLIDARITY WITH ACTIVE
RESISTANCE MOVEMENTS RIGHT NOW
Art by @vrye
We are in solidarity with the ongoing active resistance movements at the border, in Puerto Rico, and Hawai’i’s Mauna Kea. These struggles are power struggles that are inextricable from systemic wealth inequality, white supremacy, and colonization.
In each of these resistances, people with wealth and power are trying to impose their agendas through force backed by the State. And in each one of these scenarios, wealthy people are connected to not only the people making these decisions, but also through their wealth and finances -- people are getting richer off privatized concentration camps and prison contracts with the U.S. government; in Puerto Rico, the resistance is demanding the repeal of U.S.-imposed undemocratic austerity policies; and at Mauna Kea, the future of the proposed telescope that would desecrate indigenous land hinges on a foundation’s support.
We've listed some additional information and ways to support these movements here. Please review and share around!
SPRING-SUMMER MEMBERSHIP UPDATE!!!
At 684, RG has ~more members than ever before~ thanks to more than 20 RG member-leaders who helped drive our spring membership drive by coordinating chapter and peer-to-peer membership asks!
While our definition of wealth is broader than “millionaires" -- RG organizes the richest 10% of people 18-35 years old -- our Development Director, danielle west, has really been lifting up WealthEngine’s recent statistic that in 2019 there are more than 718,000 millenial millionaries in the U.S!!!
Will you help RG reach our goal of 800 dues-paying members before we end 2019?!?
Our interconnection advances our shared work to lead towards an equitable distribution of wealth, land, and power. Thank you to each of the RG member-leaders and to all of our formal, dues-paying members, for being such an integral part of RG's work. Let's continue to grow, to reach, to scale and, ultimately, let's fight to win!
CHAPTER UPDATES
RG Atlanta
Since our first official chapter event back in March, momentum has been building in Atlanta! We started a mini-praxis group in May to take place over the summer and begin strengthening relationships among our members. Our upcoming priorities are to continue 1on1s with the folks already plugged in and do some big picture visioning. We're hoping spending time on these priorities will help us in outreach and coalition building with potential constituents and campaign partners.
(The picture below is from our first praxis session in which we talked RG core values/mission/vision, shared money stories, and did some goal sharing.)
RG Bay Area
In May we had our first General Member Meeting and it was packed! We opened with a “speed dating” about our relationships with money, class, and giving. We were joined by our new local campaign partner Mujeres Unidas y Activas, who organize immigrant Latina women. MUA organizer Enma gave a presentation about the history of the domestic worker movement in CA.
RGers have volunteered at Oakland’s May Day immigrant justice march, shown up to actions outside ICE in San Francisco, and attended lobby days in Sacramento with MUA.
In June our new Resource Mobilization team hosted an awesome giving plan work night!
In July we raised over $52K on our list serv for 3 immigrant justice organizations: Mijente, RAICES, and the Bay Area Immigration Bond Fund.
RG Boston
RG Boston Campaigns team is part of the Public Good Coalition, challenging the right wing agenda of privatization and organized racist hate. The Coalition had its first action exposing our primary target: Fidelity! Fidelity is behind some the biggest efforts to privatize public services in MA and it's impossible to stay silent as they profit off of donors channeling money to Islamophobic, white nationalist hate groups. We are organizing to leverage our position with Fidelity as young wealthy people!
RG Boston also collectively raised over $26,000 for Lobster Feed, a community celebration of grassroots organizing in June to support 8 local organizations.
RG Denver
Denver RG just completed another round of Praxis! We are excited by the momentum this round of Praxis built and are looking forward to another round in the coming year. Highlights from this Praxis included deep relationship building, solid action steps, and continued participation in the broader chapter.
RG L.A.
In July, RG-LA held its first monthly chapter meeting, where member leaders and new members congregated to both provide updates on the various working groups we established back in April and to engage in some vision-boarding for the chapter going forward. One major work area that members shared excitement over is to move towards a broader "resource mobilization" model that would enable the building and sustaining of relationships with people we're giving money to. Another important area is figuring out how to better structure our working groups so that there is more clarity on the utility of and people involved in each. Overall, we are excited to continue building our membership and to further our shared visions for the growth of RG-LA.
RG NYC
The NYC chapter had our annual BBQ, wrapped up six praxis groups (!!) and had an Intro to RG event for folks brand new to the chapter who haven’t had a chance to join praxis groups yet. Our Moving Money Working Group held a cafe work session, Action Working Group went out and did Karaoke with a partner organization, Make the Road NY, and our Men’s Praxis group launched a 46 for 46 fundraising campaign to raise $46K for reproductive justice in honor of Roe V. Wade’s 46th birthday. We got to pilot the Transformative Fundraising Workshop given at TLI and are gearing up to do transformative fundraising 1 to 1s with our whole chapter!
RG Western Mass
RG Western Mass has had an awesome summer! We finished up a 9-person praxis group and closed the praxis with a giving circle where we raised over $100,000 to support 5 organizations and then had a chapter-wide pool party to celebrate our praxis group and introduce them to our chapter!
We launched two new "teams" recently - our culture team and action team. The culture group has hosted two themed conversations for our chapter - one on the ethics of buying a house / owning property, and one on what we do for paid work and how we feel about it. The action group has been going to the biweekly meetings of Springfield No One Leaves - a local housing justice organization.
RG has 16 chapters and college hubs across the U.S.
Learn more and get involved here.
ANNUAL NATIONAL MEMBERS COUNCIL MEETING!
RG’s National Members’ Council gathered July 13-14 in Minneapolis with RG’s board and director-level staff to evaluate the past two years of the NMC’s work and discuss what meaningful and appropriate member-leadership looks like for an org whose constituent members have access to class privilege.
We heard updates from the council's committees and about future organizational development opportunities. After two days, through challenging and committed conversation, we determined that the existing committee structure of the NMC isn't effective for the varied goals we’re trying to accomplish.
Current NMC members will be working to propose an alternate structure for a representative member leadership body to weigh in on strategic decisions of the organization.
Stay tuned for further updates on NMC 2.0 – including asks for your input (especially if you are a chapter leader! That includes you, Minneapolis!)
UPCOMING RG WEBINAR -- MONDAY AUGUST 26TH!
 On Monday August 26th our webinar, "Leveraging Investments in Support of Social Justice," will explore how to leverage invested assets to support social movements and to redistribute land, wealth, and power.
The webinar will feature Ed Whitfield of the Fund for Democratic Communities, Jennifer Near of Justice Funders, and RG member Lane Fury facilitating.
It will be an introduction to core concepts in social movement investing, and equip participants with a starting place from which to further explore how to leverage their invested assets in ways that align with their politics
Register for our webinar, Leveraging Investments in Support of Social Justice, here.
ARE YOU REGISTERED FOR MMMC YET?
Making Money Make Change is happening this November and registration is open now!
Join us this year for conversations on how to leverage class privilege towards social change, closing the racial wealth divide and ways to take 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.
Register today to reserve your spot at MMMC! More information here.
FROM PARTNERS
- New from Movement for Black Lives: Reparations Toolkit
- Please join the special webinar hosted by The Majority in coordination with the Movement For Black Lives this Thursday, August 1 at 6:00 p.m. ET/ 5:00 CT/ 3:00 PT with comrades who have been on the front lines in Puerto Rico.
- On August 1st, join us, the Hawai’i Unity and Liberation Institute (HULI), Mauna Kea Education and Awareness (MKEA), and the NDN collective for a call with leaders and organizers from the frontlines of Mauna Kea.
- Sign on to support the National Domestic Workers Bill of Rights!
- Way To Win’s Way Forward Conference: Way Forward is a gathering of donors and organizers who are upending politics as usual. The 2020 electoral cycle is fully underway, and now is the precarious time when we will either set our country on a new track or march down an even more dangerous trajectory. The future is unknown, and it is in our hands. This time together will be an opportunity to share plans and strategies and gear up for the road ahead.
- Join Chordata Capital’s next coahort: Chordata Cohort is a 9-month program that moves financial advising relationships out of isolation into community by bringing together 5-10 people with inherited wealth to decode their investments, reflect on their history, transform financial patterns, and work with innovative financial activists to experiment with emergent investment strategies.
- Transform Finance Institute: A two-day training is geared towards frontline activists, grassroots leaders, and movement-building organizations who are interested in learning about how systemic capital flows affect their social justice work, who the players are and how they operate, and how to enter that space to disrupt and reclaim finance. It's not meant to help figure out how to leverage personal finances for social change, but rather to break down the financial landscape in a digestible way and inspire alternatives.
- Check out Groundswell Fund’s report “Power and Vision: Groundswell Fund’s Evaluation of the Reproductive Justice Movement.” In 2018, Groundswell leveraged the support of national funders and donors to award grants to 72 reproductive justice organizations and seven grantmaking partners, contributing to an investment of $14.1 million in the reproductive justice movement. This report shows the impact of this support to grantee leaders who organized in 47 states, plus Washington DC and Puerto Rico. In total, they developed over 35,000 leaders, contacted over 151,000 voters using integrated voter engagement strategies, and organized to block 49 harmful policies while advancing 58 campaigns to support our communities.
RG OUT AND ABOUT, IN THE NEWS, AND ON OUR BLOG!
Learn more about RG membership here!
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