This Against the Day contribution argues that resourcing movements is a necessary role for sustained movement building. Donor organizers amplify their impact and sustain their work by building relationships and community toward collective liberation.
My journey into activism began through the lens of parenting. I had considered myself socially conscious, but when my kids were ages three and nine months, I began examining how and if my life reflected the values I wanted to pass on to them. After the Charleston, SC, church shooting, a tragic event in which a white supremacist took the lives of nine Black worshippers, I questioned if I was actively working toward creating the world I want for my children. The hard truth was, outside of voting, I wasn't taking action at all.
I began educating myself on how to raise anti-racist white children and how families can collectively fight against systems of oppression. Together with my husband and children, we became actively involved in our community, participating in protests and organizing events.
Even though I was now taking action, I still wasn't bringing my full self to social justice spaces. A pivotal moment came in 2017, when Mary Hooks, former codirector of Southerners on New Ground, initiated the first Black Mama's Bail Out.1 This campaign aimed to free Black mothers and caregivers from pretrial detention in time for Mother's Day. My family helped solicit and collect monetary and in-kind donations, and my kids had fun at the welcome-home party with all of the families. The experience was profound and helped me understand the importance of leveraging my access to resources to support campaigns. Resourcing movements is a necessary function for sustained movement building, and it is my work in the fight for social justice.
Just as anti-racist activism is a lifelong process, so is effective donor organizing. To sustain ourselves and show up in right relationship to social movements, donors also need community. My parents and sisters have been invaluable allies in this journey. In 2017, my dad and I joined the Solidaire Network (https://solidairenetwork.org/), a group of donor organizers supporting intersectional movements for racial, gender and climate justice. We were given language to talk about racialized capitalism and wealth redistribution. It allowed me to move past making isolated donations during political flash points to expel my grief or rage and offered tools to develop sustained donor practices. The relationships and support I've gained allow me to show up as my full self in movement spaces and leverage all of my connections and resources. What I learned gave me the confidence to talk about money and find my own voice. My older sister, Sara, later joined us as a member of Solidaire. Talking about our values around money also led to significant changes in my family's giving practices.
My family has the resources to create a family foundation, which enables us to engage as donors in a different way than many others. Collectively, we have learned to trust the leadership of community organizers and support initiatives even outside our comfort zone. In June 2023, we supported a ballot referendum to bring the issue of “Cop City,” the controversial $90 million police training facility, to a citywide vote (Franklin 2023). A majority of Atlanta residents oppose the project, which would tear down ninety-five acres of the South River Forest to train police in urban warfare tactics. We were among the first donors to resource this initiative because, as directors of a family fund, we have the flexibility and can make decisions quickly. Family foundations and individual donors may not always move the largest amounts, but we constitute a critical part of the ecosystem because we can move money early, discreetly, and with fewer constraints.
Donor organizing is about working together to access and mobilize resources—and this work is not just for those with family foundations. Through Solidaire Network, I've been able to impact reproductive justice work through our pooled fund's multiyear grant making to the Feminist Women's Health Center (https://feministcenter.org/), a critical independent clinic that provides safe, affordable abortion in Georgia. Solidaire's pooled funds support abortion access advocates, including SisterSong (https://www.sistersong.net/), the largest national multiethnic reproductive justice collective; SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW (https://www.sparkrj.org/), fighting for reproductive justice across the South; and Sister Reach (https://www.sisterreach-tn.org/), reproductive justice advocates in Tennessee. In September, Solidaire became the home for the Building the Fire Fund, the first fund dedicated to Indigenous reproductive justice.2
Showing up as a donor organizer fills a crucial need in the fight for social justice. Donors have an urgent role to play as resource organizers and must be as committed as the frontline organizers who strategically implement intergenerational work. My family, community, and relationships with other donors and movement organizers nurture me to sustain my work and keep growing into this role. It is going to take all of us to transform our world toward solidarity and collective liberation. Together is the only way that we will win.
Notes
See “History of Black Mama's Bail Out,” National Bail Out, https://www.nationalbailout.org/history (accessed February 15, 2024).
See “Building the Fire Fund,” Solidaire website, https://solidairenetwork.org/movement-partnerships/building-the-fire-fund/ (accessed February 15, 2024).
