Mitchell Kapor Foundation Weblog

On a panel at the Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy pre-Council on Foundations Conference in April, I presented four suggestions for social justice funders to consider.  Previously, I wrote about the first three of these, Find a Political Home, Build the Vehicles to Move us Forward and Develop your Skills as an Organizer. Below, I share the fourth of four suggestions.

4) Choose to be a Member

To be clear, I would only share this last suggestion with those who already engage their jobs, philanthropy and the larger non-profit sector with a commitment to social justice values and practices.

For those who do, I encourage us to see ourselves as members of a social justice movement rather than as something more removed, rather than to see ourselves simply as supporters.

As I’ve been taught to understand it, membership implies mutuality – mutual investment in one another, mutual ownership of our shared work, mutual accountability to shared goals, and mutual discipline and care in our approach  - in ways that the role or term of supporter or even volunteer do not.  While maybe only a subtle distinction, I do believe that it matters and particularly so in regards to the limits of where we go as a social justice movement.

As an example, a volunteer committee I was a part of became a membership committee of the community based organization with whom we worked.  To get to that point, it took years of working together, many missteps and months of consciously organizing ourselves as volunteers. It was a recognition of the trust, relationships and accountability built between us volunteers and the organization’s existing members and staff, but more importantly for all of us, it was an ask of us … it was an ask to not abdicate our respective positions, privileges or power, but to instead respectively bring them to bear in the organization’s grassroots organizing efforts and to tie our development, our growth and levels of commitment and responsibility with those of the organization’s other members.  As a funder, it’s also been the ask that I’ve been trying to answer in the affirmative.

End note: I realized in drafting these four suggestions, that any one of us could be entirely successful in our foundation jobs without following any of these four suggestions.  But having been in philanthropy now for some time, I’ve increasingly come to believe that to be successful as social justice funders we must at least consider thoughtfully each of these four suggestions.  And, I guess my hope is that for an increasing number of us, success as social justice funders is what we’re working towards.

On a panel at the Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy pre-Council on Foundations Conference in April, I presented four suggestions for social justice funders to consider.  Previously, I wrote about the first two of these, Find a Political Home and Build the Vehicles to Move us Forward.  Below, I share the third of four suggestions.

3) Develop your Skills as an Organizer

One of the most remarkable aspects of social movements is that there truly is a role for everyone to play.  Regardless of your background, your relative privilege or lack thereof, your profession or where you live, there are ways to contribute and benefit.  Foremost of these is to organize – to consciously attempt to expand and amplify social justice analysis and work by allowing others to similarly have access to and ownership of social justice analysis and work, and by supporting those people to themselves become organizers.

As social justice funders, we must accept the responsibilities that come with being an organizer.  In particular, we need to organize where we’re at, to organize within philanthropy. Thankfully, many of us do.

But choosing to be an organizer might be the easy part.  The challenge is to be great organizers within philanthropy, to be both disciplined and thoughtful.  And so, we must intentionally find the ways to develop our organizing skills.  My hope is that there already exists curriculum, workshops and / or organizations that train us how to do so. Or, if not, that we can create them. Because, if we believe that what the community organizing groups we fund do is strategic, are acts that come as much from ones head as it does ones heart, then we can’t assume that we can be great organizers without ourselves being trained.  Developing our skills as organizers is an opportunity to more effectively and efficiently play our respective role in a larger social justice movement, while, at the same time, further developing our shared understanding and empathy with the thousands and thousands of other organizers in the country.

On a related note: I’ve found the tendency to restrict who we consider to be an organizer, whether  just to paid organizers or those who work only in certain communities, to be a dangerous and limiting one.  The question shouldn’t be who can be considered an organizer, but rather, once we popularize the title of organizer, how do we support individuals to fulfill the responsibilities, the work and the appropriate level of accountability that comes with by being an organizer.

Next post in the series: 4) Choose to be a Member

Dream the impossible and organize your heart out. – Priscilla Gonzalez, Director, DWU

On June 4th, I wrote here about the organizing work of domestic workers in New York and their efforts to pass the first ever state-wide Domestic Worker Bill of Rights. Today, I’m elated to share with you the following:

I was an open skeptic of this year’s US Social Forum.  I crossed my arms and huffed when anyone mentioned it.  I imagined an event teetering between Woodstock and the WTO protests in Seattle and although I loved Seattle, I wanted to make sure I stayed good and far away from Woodstock 2010.   I’m working on respecting process and consensus and folks in my life will emphasize the work part of that sentence.  After meeting with Tammy Lu from the Labor Community Strategy Center and cajoling from our own Mario Lugay, I landed in Detroit last Tuesday at 2am.

Detroit reminded me of the landscape in dystopic science fiction movies. While walking though the city Sadiyah Seraaj from the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy said that it looked like a city that was once vibrant and in a moment of crisis everyone stopped what they were doing and ran through the streets and out of Detroit.  So imagine this background, with  30,000 people from across the country meeting to build a national movement for social justice.  It was just amazing.  I visited amazing farms and gardens, connected with restaurant and domestic workers, and saw the future of movement building in this country.  

Over the last couple of years the city of Oakland has become home to numerous blogs discussing the pressing political, community, and economic issues of the day.  These include Oakland Focus, A Better Oakland, Oakland Local, and Living in the O.  These blogs provide a much needed space for everyday people in the city to connect to each other, engage in city life, and sadly fill the space of our lacking newspaper.  I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about citizen journalism- on the one hand I think they provide an important look into how different people live and experience the city and on the other I feel like they too often mistake commentary with in depth journalism.

That said, last week I was invited to be a guest on OaklandSeen and had a great conversation with Aimee Allison on the state of Oakland.  We had an interesting conversation on issues ranging from the city’s gang injunction to economic development opportunities for the city’s long term residents.  Listen HERE and let us know what you think.

On a panel at the Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy pre-Council on Foundations Conference in April, I presented four suggestions for social justice funders to consider.  Last month, I wrote about the first of these, Find a Political Home.  Below, I share the second of four suggestions.

2.  Build the Vehicles to Move us Forward

The story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott is undoubtedly a powerful one.  But while the courageously repeated and mass act of refusing to cooperate with a racist bus system dominates the popular narrative about the boycott, it is that other side of the story that continues to captivate me.

For African Americans in Montgomery in the 1950s, the bus system allowed them to travel from one place to another, usually from their homes to their jobs (which often were at the homes of white residents).  It came, though, at a heavy price.  By segregating the ridership and requiring African Americans to give up their seats to white riders, bus drivers made African Americans pay their bus fare plus the added indignity that comes from suffering unjust acts.  They were, in short, not allowed to bring their full selves on their daily commute.

In response, the Montgomery African American community decided not to remain complicit, choosing instead to boycott.  In order to make possible and sustain a bus boycott, civil rights leaders had to create and organize a massive car pool system, up to 350 cars daily, that required immense financial and human resources from an already under-resourced black community.  It is this car pool system that seems particularly instructive.

Set-up by a newly formed Montgomery Improvement Association, the car pool system, like the bus system, also offered African Americans the ability to travel from one place to another. The difference, however, was that the car pool system did so in ways that did not cost African American passengers their dignity. It brought together the fractious classes of Montgomery’s African American community in what Taylor Branch described as a “radical act of togetherness.”  And, just as importantly, the car pool system advanced a social and racial justice agenda, offering all the residents of Montgomery a much needed level of redemption.

For those of us in philanthropy, foundations, like the bus system, offer opportunities to move individuals, communities, organizations, and/or ourselves from one place to another.  In our case, it has the ability to move us closer to the social justice ends that we might seek.  But for so many reasons, whether those be legal, financial, or political, what or how we move forward can be structurally and culturally constrained.  If this is the case, then it begs the question, what’s our car pool system?  What are the additional vehicles or ways of moving that we need to create, as funders, that will get us to where we need to be and that will sustain our organizing efforts to get there? Creating such vehicles seems to be the task at hand for social justice funders.  It is the task being undertaken by those organizing within the philanthropic sector, whether through affinity groups, study groups or spaces such as the Bay Area Justice Funders Network or Bay Area Blacks in Philanthropy. It is, perhaps, our own small and necessary acts of radical togetherness.

Next post in the series: 3) Develop Your Skills as an Organizer

BP’s trial and error approach to cap the unmanageable oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is damaging more than just BP’s financial outlook.  The oil spill has leaked between 19.7 million and 43 million gallons, according to government estimates.  BP will undoubtedly recover financially from what is being considered the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, but unfortunately this disaster may render irreversible damages to the environment and an economic trade that is supplemented by natural resources.

While wildlife will suffer the most visible effects of this calamity, those who inhabit the coastal lands of Louisiana will have to endure the economic and environmental effects associated with this spill, most notably Native Americans.  For many of these coastal tribes, fishing is a big part of life.  For the Pointe Aux Chenes Tribe, who resettled in the Louisiana marsh lands after being forced from their lands more than a century ago, seafood is not only a big part of their dietary intake, but also their primary export.  Having little to no resources to combat the spill and hurricane season approaching, the tribe, along with many other coastal inhabitants, is in great danger of having a low surplus of food for the upcoming months and potentially suffering from water contamination.

This spill is a call for government to become more active in pursuing alternative ways to attain oil and, more importantly, invest more money in developing a green energy plan that focuses on renewable energy sources.  But until the government puts talk into action, organizations across the country need to continue being vocal about environmental issues and the benefits associated with going green.  In addition, society must become more cognizant that low-income communities of color are suffering at a disproportionate rate from environmental injustice.  Our Green Access program at the Mitchell Kapor Foundation seeks to create meaningful opportunities for low-income communities of color thus ensuring fairness and sustainability.  Every community, regardless of class or race, should be afforded green and sustainable living, free from financial exploitation from large corporations.

photo source: Micheal Murphy, Examiner.com

Seven years ago, I was brought into the field of community organizing as a volunteer with Domestic Workers United (DWU).  At that time, DWU’s organizing efforts were among the most inspired and strategic in New York City, fresh off the passage of a city-wide domestic workers bill of rights.  Seven years later, the domestic workers movement – at the intersection of race, gender, immigration and labor – is among the most inspired and strategic movements in the country.  With the founding of the National Domestic Workers Alliance at the 2007 United States Social Forum, the influence and impact organized domestic workers are having grows larger each day, offering both a scathing critique of the status quo and a road map to get us somewhere more just and equitable.

On Tuesday, the domestic worker movement took a huge step forward.  In their own, words …

Dear friends,

On June 1, about 100 domestic workers and supporters got on buses headed for Albany to urge senators one last time to vote YES for the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights during today’s session. With truth on our side, we educated thousands of Albany residents and legislative workers about the conditions faced by domestic workers and the urgency of basic rights and protections. We hit senate offices to remind them about the vote, to address any last-minute concerns, and to urge them to vote in favor of the bill.

After two hours of deliberation, filled with impassioned and moving speeches by members of the Democratic conference recalling the struggles of their mothers and grandmothers who had been domestic workers, desiring to reclaim New York’s pioneering leadership in workers’ rights, and highlighting the moral significance of this bill, the New York State Senate finally came down on the right side of history. That night, the New York State Senate voted 33-28 to pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.

We have come so far, since we first set out on this journey. We have gotten everyone to learn about the domestic workers’ plight and the history of exclusion. We have built and deepened strong alliances with many different sectors of our society. Everyone has been touched and moved in some way. We could not have accomplished all that we have without your support and without you standing alongside us in this struggle.

We ask you to stay with us, as we enter the last phase of our campaign for justice. Now we must get the Assembly and Senate bills reconciled so that the governor can sign into law much-needed and long overdue basic rights and protections for the workers who make all other work possible.

Priscilla Gonzalez, Director, Domestic Workers United

“We have a dream that one day all work will be valued equally.”

Check out DWU featured on the front page of the NY Times!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/nyregion/03nanny.html?hp

Update:  Good summary of the legislation by the Progressive States Network here.

On a panel last month at the Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy pre-Council on Foundations Conference, I presented  four suggestions for social justice funders to consider.  Over the next few weeks, I’ll write on each of these four and hope you’ll share your own thoughts with us.

Of the many approaches to social change, I turn most towards movement-building strategies.  As a funder, then, I’m constantly searching for the ways that my practice and work best align with the demands of such an approach.  Below is the first of four such ways that I’ve come to believe strongly in.

1.  Find a Political Home

Social justice movements require scale and scale, in turn, requires a level of consistent connectivity among people and organizations.  Political homes – community-based and led social justice institutions or organizations that individuals are members of and with whom there is mutual investment and accountability – provide exactly this. We should find and join such places not only to contribute to an organization’s work, but, more so, as a space in which to be grounded, to continuously learn, to develop organizing skills, and to be only a phone call away for when those unpredictable political moments that can define social justice movements occur.

CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities has been my political home for the past seven years.  Time and again, CAAAV has not only responded to events and political openings, but also intentionally expanded the opportunity for others like myself to participate in those responses, from the ’06 immigration marches to the first United States Social Forum in ‘07 to ’08 voter engagement efforts in Virginia.  Just as important, CAAAV allows me to participate in the often unrecognized day-to-day contributions that have been the backbone of every social movement. CAAAV, in short, facilitates my choosing to engage in action over indulging in apathy. And, it does so by offering strategic and coordinated ways to act with a community of people I’ve grown to trust.

As a funder, being a member of a community-based organization allows me to be in dialogue with those to whom I most want to be accountable.  It affords me the opportunity to understand at a deeper and more personal level the conditions faced by organizations that I support through grantmaking and to understand the realities of building such organizations.  Only through having a political home have I’ve been able to access the experience, political analysis and honest feedback with which to ensure that my work is relevant and complimentary to the many moving parts of our social justice ecosystem.

Like any home, political homes bring their own sets of challenges and demands on our time.  But, in the same spirit, they also position us to engage and engage better the world around us, allowing you and me to start from a place of love and support to which we can always return.

Next post in the series:  2) Build the Vehicles to Move us Forward

Congrats to Demos, which was praised in last Friday’s New York Times for their critical public policy and advocacy work from a progressive perspective. Demos, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary next month, was one of our first grant recipients when we launched the civic engagement focus area in 2007. They remain one of our key grant partner organizations, mostly for their notable work on voter registration modernization and campaign reform.

Keep up the great work (we need it)!