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Staff from NDN Collective, New Georgia Project, Movement for Black Lives and Center for Popular Democracy share lessons learned. Access Password: MMMC2020! (CC starts a few minutes in)

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Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing, Webinars, Screen Sharing

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Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars across mobile, desktop, and room systems. Zoom Rooms is the original software-based conference room solution used around the world in board, conference, huddle, and training rooms, as well as executive offices and classrooms. Founded in 2011, Zoom helps businesses and organizations bring their teams together in a frictionless environment to get more done.

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Understanding #LANDBACK for non-Native people

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Understanding #LANDBACK for non-Native people

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campaign demands and vision

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Leadership Trajectory and Core Competencies

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Leadership Trajectory and Core Competencies

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from potential base to RG core organizer

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RG's Leadership Trajectories Core Competencies 2020

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a post on the origins of capitalism and the necessity of wealth redistribution

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Pandemics are an acute crisis. They put a highlighter on the racial and economic inequities that are chronic, ongoing crises. During this time, Johns Hopkins is keeping a tally of the confirmed cases and deaths from Covid-19. There are terrifying estimates but there is no ticker measuring the suffering and lives lost to poverty globally every year. Poverty is not held as a crisis around which everything else should rightfully pause. It is an implicit expectation that poor families will lose each other to prisons, to deportation, to hunger, to untreated addiction and insufficient health care en mass everyday. These are the consequences of a system dependent on a notion that some are disposable. While there are short-term beneficiaries, no one really wins in the game of capitalism, certainly not the planet or our collective physical and spiritual wellness.

There is nothing "natural" about capitalism. It wasn't an inevitable progression, it was a strategic plan in response to mass peasant uprisings and labor shortages caused by a global pandemic, the Plague. As serfs and peasants got more organized in their fight against feudalism, the ruling class had to create a new system that would continue to protect and increase their wealth. Creating a wage-based system that was (and is) gendered, racialized, and profoundly ableist ensured that a significant number of people would always be kept poor and thus easily exploitable while others could ascend into comparative comfort and have a vested interest in helping protect the ruling class. In a wage-based system, rather than trading goods directly we trade hours of labor valued at vastly different amounts in order to buy goods or skills at a fairly fixed amount. All roles required for daily life are no longer necessary parts of the whole but labor itself becomes a commodity. Capitalism took force to create and requires daily force from government, military, and police to maintain. People have fought capitalism tooth and nail since the beginning because the writing has been on the wall since day one: this won't end well.

Throughout the relatively short history of capitalism there is a trend where disasters are times when the poor get poorer and the wealthy consolidate power. From the plague to the Great Depression to the 2008 housing crash - history is full of moments when this pattern repeats itself and we're living in one right now. This is a moment of extremes where, for example, Jeff Bezos' fortune grew by 25 billion in 4 weeks while Amazon workers went on strike for paid sick leave. Meanwhile, some of us got stimulus checks that were not needed and many who needed them most were left out. We're in a moment when half of Americans don't know if they'll be able to make rent next month and simultaneously there are an estimated 618,000 U.S millennial millionaires.

One way to change this path is through wealth redistribution. At RG, when we talk about wealth redistribution, it is a harm reduction strategy. It's a recognition that the system is set up so that wealth will magically keep accumulating itself unless it's actively redistributed. (It's like debt, only in reverse.) Redistribution means circulating rather than hoarding excess wealth, and it is one of the lowest rungs on the ladder: a tangible way for people with wealth to practice solidarity with poor and working-class communities. It's a crucial starting place, not one that needs to be overly glamorized or intensified, just a thing to do. We all have roles to play in resisting capitalism, now is a great time to find yours and play them well.

Globally, the top 1% now own 45% of the world's wealth. This is a reflection of there not being mechanisms for forced redistribution in place. Tax shelters, cuts, exemptions, and the ongoing deterioration of workers' rights allow for massive stockpiling of private wealth passed down through inheritance. If we continue down this path, it doesn't end well. Until these systems change, voluntary redistribution is a main mechanism for those with wealth and class privilege to commit to being part of a different future. You can start by taking the giving pledge , signing the #sharemycheck campaign, joining us June 8th for a (this has passed -> virtual workshop on wealth redistribution ,) and supporting ongoing social justice organizing that aims to heal and uproot the harm of racial capitalism.

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To learn more:

Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici

Article: The Bailout is Working for the Rich

Canadian Pledge with interactive graphics on how much to give: #ShareMyCheque

Fortification Series : For past, present and future visioning in the of Covid

Movement Generation's Just Transition Zine

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From Beginning to End: Resisting Capitalism

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Pandemics are an acute crisis. They put a highlighter on the racial and economic inequities that are chronic, ongoing crises. During this time, Johns Hopkins is keeping a tally of the confirmed cases and deaths from Covid-19. There are terrifying estimates but there is no ticker measuring the suffering and lives lost to poverty globally every year.

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A practical guide with templates, resources, BIPOC led land justice groups and more.

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follow the four c's: Consistency, Communication, Commitment, and Clarity

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Building Strong Cross Class Campaign Relationships

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Some helpful tips for cross-class resource sharing with friends etc.

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We all need systemic changes - turning a system built on extraction and harm into one built on regeneration and care. It's obviously not the role of people with class privilege to try to "save" poor people. There are, however, many meaningful ways to show up in cross-class relationships, including - but certainly not limited to - funding poor and working class-led grassroots organizations, mutual aid networks, and direct giving to individuals. Many immigrant communities, communities of color, and working-class communities have long, deep traditions of resource sharing. Below are a few suggestions built upon the wisdom of those cultural norms and practices. Holding these invitations central may help to undermine dominant class privileged patterns and power dynamics, creating a more liberatory experience for all those involved.

Things to keep in mind in the offering:

be vulnerable - poor and working class people often have to share an enormous amount of life story and data in an attempt to gain access to services. Flip this dynamic by offering your own vulnerability. This does not mean your whole money story but a little bit of your own story and context to increase mutuality.

be heart-led - tap into why you want to give/share/donate/redistribute. Find that place in your heart and make an offer from there.

be proactive - when appropriate put people in a position to say yes rather than to have to ask.

be clear - get as specific as possible and set any clear boundaries early on. There is a time and place for open-ended offers ("if you ever need something let me know"), but only if it's genuinely what the person with fewer resources is most likely to respond well to.

be systemic - help to make the situation less personal by zooming out to the larger context we are all living within. Society constantly reinforces poverty as individual deficit and wealth as individual achievement; disrupt that narrative directly.
Example 1: I am making XX amount right now at my job which is more than I need to live off of. It doesn't feel right to have more than I need when so many people are suffering. I'm giving the extra to grassroots orgs and to people I'm in community with. I know you've been struggling right now, I would love to chip in YY amount this month towards your expenses. I'm wondering if that could feel good for you and between us. I care so much about you and I know it's not right that you get paid so much less than me. How would you feel about me getting to chip in? To be clear, it would just be for this month. Example 2: I wanted to check in with you about possibly sharing some money with you. I received an inheritance years ago and don't believe that it's money that I need or earned in any way, and am committed to redistributing it to grassroots orgs and people who need it now. I know you've been dealing with a lot these last couple months. I really care about you and you deserve to have some breathing room & to be able to meet your basic needs. I wonder if it would feel good to you to talk about me offering you some financial support? I could offer X amount this month ( consider offering a larger amount up front if you can/if someone has a backlog of bills ), and then could support you with xx amount each month for the next 6 months. If that's something you're interested in, could we talk on the phone about what you and I would both need for that to feel ok for both of us? Our relationship is really important to me, and I know money can be really hard to talk about & brings up a lot. Here for those conversations, and any answer is totally fine.
Things to keep in mind in receiving a response:

be flexible - maybe what you offered was helpful yesterday but today there's a new need. Be willing to let go of what you thought should happen for what is actually wanted. Ex-you offered to help with rent but childcare is the more pressing need.

be sustainable - if you are giving amounts that put you in an actually precarious financial situation or is building resentment, check in with yourself and/or trusted peers to see if there are specific boundaries you need to establish or renegotiate.

be proportional - lots of times when people with class privilege give money they make it a big deal and have big feels. It does not have to be a big deal, try not to get weird about it. How would you act if interpersonal giving were totally normalized, and can you act as though that is the case already? Acting from this place helps you take up a proportional amount of space.

be open to repair - we all have shit about money. There is a risk that something you offer will not land well, there is also risk in not offering. Weigh the risks and be thoughtful of the dynamics within each relationship. If something doesn't go well, tend to impact regardless of intention. Hold lots of compassion for that fact that many of us on all ends of the economic pyramid have deep internalized shame because of the ways that money and worth get intertwined.

be accountable - if you said you were gonna do a thing, do the thing. Swiftly. Your yes should be grounded and clear. If it's helpful to have a buddy, ask someone with class privilege to be your accountabila-buddy.

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We all need systemic changes - turning a system built on extraction and harm into one built on regeneration and care. It's obviously not the role of people with class privilege to try to "save" poor people.

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how does all wealth connect back to land?

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The saying goes "all wealth comes from the land," but how does that apply to your or your family's access to wealth? Whether it comes from a factory, business, real estate, inheritance, the stock market or somewhere else, there's a very good chance that the wealth under your or your family's control is indeed ultimately tied to land. And just as all wealth somehow intersects with the land, all struggles for liberation do as well. Internationally and domestically, there is a call ringing out from those who have been stolen from their lands, had their lands stolen, or were otherwise forcibly removed from place: the call to governments, corporations, and wealthy individuals to give land back.

With land comes the opportunity for sovereignty, cultural preservation, self-determination, and for some, wealth accumulation. These are all key components of power. The ruling class has never been interested in sharing land, and thus, nor sharing power. The past and present is full of examples of governments and corporations seizing land - most obviously and extensively from Indigenous communities - while simultaneously denying access to land to Black communities and other communities of color. One example is the infamously unfulfilled "forty acres and a mule" post emancipation (wherein not only was no land given but land was actively taken from freedmen). Other examples include the trail of endless broken treaties, acts of war, and forced relocation policies designed to dispossess Indigenous people of their inherent responsibility to their land base as part of the insatiable appetite of colonial expansion. The first bill in the U.S. to bar a nationality by name was yet one more example of an attempt to limit people of color - in this case, Japanese farmers - from owning land because of the threat it created to white farmers. For a more comprehensive timeline of the history of Black, indigenous and POC land loss in the U.S. click here.

The U.S. legal system and government attempts to limit who owns land to white, upper class, Christian, cisgender men has had, and continues to have, a profound impact on who maintains state-sanctioned power. The state would not have gone through such strenuous and violent attempts at regulation, restriction and displacement if land were not so central to wealth accumulation.

As a multi-racial community of young people with access to wealth and class privilege, our family histories may include colonizers and those who were colonized, landowners and those forced from their land, and ancestors who fought against imperialism and then immigrated to the U.S. - and are complicit with settler colonialism here. Regardless, a key marker of our access to class privilege and wealth today is homeownership and the ability to purchase and sell land. Whatever our individual ties to "property," all money generated from the stock market is reliant on the commodification of the earth's resources in order to exist and all young people with wealth with investments in the stock market are direct beneficiaries of these extractive practices. And for those of us who earn a high wage through the tech industry, we must recognize that industry is reliant on mining the precious components that make technology possible.

Given how much effort has gone into limiting working-class BIPOC communities from accessing land, we know land redistribution is a pivotal aspect of undermining imperialism and supporting larger efforts towards reparations and decolonization. From Puerto Rico, to Hawaii, to the Philippines, to Palestine, around the world, we know that the impact of colonial conquest on the land and its inhabitants runs contrary to life.

Having seen the painful outcomes of land in the hands of those seeking profit over connection, land returns are a way to shift power directly back to those from whom it has been stolen. On a small scale this might look like: turning over control of land your family has access to Black farmers, helping working-class BIPOC organizations buy a building so that those and other organizations can operate out of it rent-free, paying land tax to the tribe whose land you occupy, supporting social justice organizing in another country that your wealth is tied to, or securing housing for others. The glory of land justice work is that it can look like so many things.

On the policy and systems-level, this might look like reimagining how and who stewards public land as the LANDBACK campaign demands a return to Indigenous hands. Or supporting bills like the Breathe Act which invites us to reimagine public safety and how spaces are policed. Locally it might look like putting your time, energy, resources, and connections as someone with class privilege into fighting for affordable housing. It might also look like supporting and amplifying anti-colonial calls for independence globally.

Here are some of the resources on land reparations we've pulled together with the collective support and wisdom of members in the Land Reparations working group:

Land Justice Guide includes different tools, templates, and resources for doing land returns along with a list of Black, Indigenous and People of Color Land projects and organizations to support.

Land Reparations and Indigenous Solidarity Toolkit includes case studies and educational resources for non-Native communities on being in solidarity with Indigenous organizing.

RG's Indigenous Land Tax policy includes information about RG's organizational land tax policy values with suggestions for individuals and other orgs to adopt the practice.

Organizing around land reparations, like all of RG's work, is a long-term transformative process and ongoing practice of accountability that is most effective when done collectively.
Connect with others by joining the Land rReparations listserv, peer accountability counsel, and/or leadership team. Reach out to jes(at)resourcegeneration.org or complete this form to get plugged in.

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The saying goes "all wealth comes from the land," but how does that apply to your or your family's access to wealth? Whether it comes from a factory, business, real estate, inheritance, the stock market or somewhere else, there's a very good chance that the wealth under your or your family's control is indeed ultimately tied to land.

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Best practices for members

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Answering some commonly asked ?'s about Resource Generation

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At RG, when we talk about wealth redistribution, it is a harm reduction strategy and an acknowledgment that all wealth is built on stolen land, stolen labor, and stolen lives. To be clear, young people with access to wealth can practice voluntary wealth redistribution (this is what our members do when making a long-term commitment to poor and working-class led social justice movements) but RG is organizing in solidarity with poor and working-class led movements toward the equitable distribution of wealth, land, and power - which requires systemic wealth redistribution.

Wealth redistribution at RG is a recognition that racial capitalism is set up so that wealth will keep accumulating itself unless it's actively redistributed. (It's like debt, only in reverse.) Well stated by RG's Program Director in this blog post, "Redistribution means circulating rather than hoarding excess wealth, and it is one of the lowest rungs on the ladder: a tangible way for people with wealth to practice solidarity with poor and working-class communities. It's a crucial starting place, not one that needs to be overly glamorized or intensified, just a thing to do. We all have roles to play in resisting capitalism, now is a great time to find yours and play them well."

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At RG, when we talk about wealth redistribution, it is a harm reduction strategy and an acknowledgment that all wealth is built on stolen land, stolen labor, and stolen lives.

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Crowdsourced resources for talking to (white, wealthy) families about abolition

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Crowdsourced resources for talking to (white, wealthy) families about abolition

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articles, sample language, tactics, link to notes from organizing your family workshop

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Organizing (White, Owning Class) Family For M4BL and Abolition

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Solidarity with Indigenous Land and Water Defense 

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Solidarity with Indigenous Land and Water Defense 

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"thanksgiving" webinar co-hosted with Indigenous Solidarity Network, SURJ and others. CC version.

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Helpful reminders when moving money quickly

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M4BL's mandate to philanthropy,  CPD's people's bail out, & taking action as part of intergenerational healing                               (cc version available 12/20)

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Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing, Webinars, Screen Sharing

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Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars across mobile, desktop, and room systems. Zoom Rooms is the original software-based conference room solution used around the world in board, conference, huddle, and training rooms, as well as executive offices and classrooms. Founded in 2011, Zoom helps businesses and organizations bring their teams together in a frictionless environment to get more done.

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Updated Social Justice Philanthropy Principles

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Updated Social Justice Philanthropy Principles

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Guiding principles with current examples