i just left the council on foundations annual conference in denver, co, where i got to speak about movement building as part of the social justice track.

the fact that such a track exists in that space is apparently a victorious thing in and of itself…to have several sessions focused on a nuanced exploration of improving the impact of philanthropy on large scale justice-oriented goals is not to be taken for granted in this historically conservative space. i was allowed to go for a day, and met several participants and speakers who do really noteworthy investments in deep movement building.

i was there because i got invited to participate in a fishbowl conversation moderated by tim sweeney of the gill foundation, who was just delightful. a few weeks ago we had a conversation to prepare for this one, and i already had a clear sense that there was openness to truly new thinking on what the relationship between philanthropy and social justice movement building could look like. the track organzers, suzanne siskel, anna pond and jessica bearman, were really thoughtful in pulling us together, and deeply curious about the new ideas we were bringing…even down to little things. i suggested they use wordle to quickly show what our panel worked on, and they ended up creating wordle spreads for all the sessions.

the other panelists [whose full names and bios are below] were carlos, ryan, katherine, chet and erica. i think i managed to grab noteworthy quotes from all of them, and the conversation was pretty juicy for a panel at a philanthropy conference. from the audience, stephen bradbury, kavitha ramdas and akwasi aidoo — were also key to shaping the lessons we were sharing.

one particularly thrilling unexpected piece was on the power of nonviolent direct action as a strategy. kavitha asked how we realistically build movements when the communities we are supporting are in deeply violent circumstances where their actions, particularly in self-defense, gets highlighted while the circumstances surrounding their actions aren’t mentioned. this led to a deep conversation on how important it is to have groups like ruckus which focus on strategic and creative nonviolent direct action tactics. its not fair to tell a community which is being erased off the planet to choose nonviolence if its not working – and yet we have more and more cases that show that nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience is a crucial component of successful movement building, and usually much more strategic for an oppressed community than violence. the strategic argument carries much more weight than the morality of it – i cannot speak to morality in war torn zones, when my whole family has been killed or separated from me…and i mean zones from detroit to dakar. so we went there, and i was really impressed with the depth and complexity of people’s responses.

i hope this leads to some solid resources – not just for ruckus, but for groups who engage in action!

now i wanted to just offer some of the quotes from the session which i think speak for themselves:

How much pressure does it take to transform you? — slam nuba, the opening performer [the metaphor was diamonds]

One element of social movements is a common narrative – a new story. — Ryan Friedrichs

To me a social movement feels local no matter how big it gets. A social movement is visionary, but also creates tangible changes in people’s lives. A strong social movement is adaptive and decentralized, growing in many directions from a point of shared vision. — Me

I don’t know if we have movements in the U.S. – issues yes, networks yes, but can we stop Arizona’s racist policy? Will we really boycott Arizona in a meaningful way? — Me

I think a major question we are asking here is: Are we in it to win it? Social movements are messy. One thing is for sure – when you write out the most impacted communities, we all lose. – Katherine Acey, Astrea Foundation

If we don’t work together at a large scale, globalise our movement work, then we just migrate problems from one region to another. — Chet, Global Greengrants

Social movements are self-organized, complex, adaptive systems – and must be resilient. — Chet, Global Greengrants [this quote THRILLED me!!]

You have to have the long view, which is not something philanthropy has done much of yet. Civil rights was a long arc, starting with slaves trying to break free, not just with the bus boycott. — Erica Hunt, 21st Century Foundation

I look at the Zapatistas, who built movement by building relationships, slowly, in people’s living rooms, building a shared dream and a longing for community. I also think of sustainability – investing in embedded leadership so that communities don’t depend on organizations or funders, but on themselves. — Me

Culture and arts are not a side piece, but a critical piece of our movements. It tells the story. – Katherine Acey, Astrea

Fund movements such that they can fund themselves..have a strategy to move small dollars, be cooperative. – Ryan Friedrichs

As a funder how do you buy space for groups to make mistakes, do long arc work and eventually connect to policy change? – Erica Hunt, 21st Century

We have to make sure folks understand and are invested in reforms so that our policies aren’t empty. — Stephen Bradberry, Gulf Coast Fund

Strong national work is only possible when built upon strong local work – whether its policies or practices. — Me

We have to keep our eyes on the prize: we seek collective behavior change, not policy change. — Chet T, Global Greengrants

Philanthropy needs to think like communities, which are not sectioned off into issues, and are not short-term. Intersectionality, long-term thinking…whole communities are like whole people. — Me

Don’t restrict funds. Do return phone calls. Don’t increase tension among allies by asking us for dirt on each other. Do fund people to do their work in the field, not something you decide outside of their experience is right for them. Do invest in growing organizers’ capacity to evaluate their work and adapt. Do practice w/us, don’t just visit – do some work and get to know the people. — Me, on tangible things philanthropists can do as movement builders

Roots don’t do very well when they are unearthed…how do we make sure we don’t do more harm than good {when we bring community leaders our of their community to work with philanthropy, when we try to dig to the root of a problem}? — Akwasi, Trust Fund Africa

I want to talk about violence. Chet said movements are nonviolent – but what about places where violence is the setting? Palestinians are supposed to be like Gandhi no matter what circumstances they are up against. I want to ask how far we will go in supporting social movements, and how we honestly address the violence. — Kavitha Ramdas, Global Fund for Women

I look to groups like The Ruckus Society for creative ways to be nonviolent, because violence will never work, strategically. – Erica Hunt, 21st Century

We really work hard not to make a moral judgment call on nonviolence when we are not in those situations of having our families killed, having no options. We make it a strategic call, a tactic that works when up against overwhelming odds – to commit to nonviolence and be disciplined, and be creative. — Me

We act like nonviolence is easy. We have to teach what it means and doesn’t mean! – Carlos Saavedra

From my own experience I must say, violence will never work – it simply puts more barriers between people But we need the courage to fund creative tactics, including nonviolent direct action. – Avila, Community Foundation of Northern Ireland

One point to emphasize – strategic plans are vulnerable to changing landscapes. Strategic minds are fed by changing landscapes. We need to fund in ways that grow the strategic capacity of communities in ways that are not stopped cold by economic crisis or new policy, but can adapt and use change as a strength. — Me

Groups we sited as doing good work: Resource Generation (developing new donors with a justice analysis), Smartmeme (changing the foundational stories upon which we build our movement strategies), Movement Generation (reorienting communities from an oppositional/victim frame to a resistance/resilience eco-justice frame) and GIFT (training communities in grassroots fundraising tactics).

Here’s the full description of our session:

Movement Building for Social Justice

How can philanthropy best contribute toward the core social justice strategy of movement building? This session will explore ways foundations support movement building in a variety of social justice issue areas —from same-sex marriage, to immigrant rights, human rights, and campaign finance reform. Presenters will discuss strategies that have and have not worked—from attempts to connect the dots between policy and organizing, to incorporating technology to support activism or using the arts to challenge perceptions. Workshop participants will distill these into lessons for foundations working in and around social justice.

Moderator: Tim Sweeney, president and CEO, Gill Foundation
Presenters: Ryan Friedrichs, executive director, State Voices; Carlos Saavedra, executive director, United We Dream; Adrienne Maree Brown, executive director, the Ruckus Society; Katherine Acey, executive director, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice; Chet Tchozewski, president, Global Greengrants Fund; Erica Hunt, president, Twenty-First Century Foundation
Session Designers: Suzanne Siskel, director, Social Justice Philanthropy, Ford Foundation; Henry Izumizaki, CEO, One Nation, Learning Director, The Russell Family Foundation; Karen Zelermyer, executive director, Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues

This morning my email inbox was full of advocacy groups commemorating the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. As the ecological systems that support life are reaching their brink, there is certainly a good reason to use this opportunity to shine a spotlight on a range of issues and challenges. But activist organizations aren’t alone in commemorating today.

Today I was struck even more by corporations trying to capitalize on Earth Day to green their images. As Becky Tarbotton observed in the Huffington Post, the New York Times summarized the situation well: “So strong was the antibusiness sentiment for the first Earth Day in 1970 that organizers took no money from corporations and held teach-ins ‘to challenge corporate and government leaders’… Forty years later, the day has turned into a premier marketing platform for selling a variety of goods and services, like office products, Greek yogurt and eco-dentistry.”

Photo by Diana Pei Wu

Against this backdrop, World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba today is a breath of fresh air.

The Indigenous Environmental Network celebrated today by explaining that “this morning Bolivian President Evo Morales was joined by representatives of 90 governments and several Heads of State to receive the findings of the conference on topics such as a Climate Tribunal, Climate Debt, just finance for mitigation and adaptation, agriculture, and forests. The working group on forests held one of the more hotly contested negotiations of the summit, but with the leadership of Indigenous Peoples, a consensus was reached to reject REDD and call for wide-scale grassroots reforestation programs.”

Jason Negrón-Gonzales of Movement Generation elaborated on how they do Earth Day in Cochabamba: “…from now I’ll be talking to my children and 2010 will be remembered as the year that Earth Day took on new meaning. It will be the year that humanity turned a corner in our relationship to Mother Earth and began struggling along a new course…more than politics, the conference in Cochabamba brought to the table humanity’s relationship with Pachamama. This question, raised most pointedly by the Indigenous communities present, was reflected in the project of creating a declaration of Mother Earth Rights, but also went way beyond it. Can we really reach a sustainable relationship with the Earth unless we stop looking at it as something to be conquered or fixed that is outside of us? How would it change our lives and our struggles if we thought, as Leonardo Boff of Brazil said, ‘Todo lo que existe merece existir, y todo lo que vive merece vivir (Everything that exists deserves to exist, and everything that lives deserves to live)’? Or if we understood the Earth as a living thing that we are a part of and that, ‘La vida es un momento de la tierra, y la vida humana un momento de la vida (Life is a moment of the earth, and the human life is a moment of life)’?”

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The historic gathering of the worlds most affected by climate change is kicking off in Cochabamba this week. Delegations of grassroots activists from the U.S. are going to help give a voice to the “South within the North” – communities on the frontlines of the impacts of climate change and resource extraction and fossil fuel development. Below is the first blog from Jason Negrón-Gonzales of the Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project on his way down to Bolivia. For up-to-the-minute reports back from Cochabamba check out Global Justice Ecology Project’s Climate Connections Blog.

Dispatch 1: Rumbo a Cochabamba

Jason Negrón-Gonzales

I’m writing from the plane in route to Cochabamba for the People’s World Conference on Climate Change and Rights of the Mother Earth. For those who aren’t familiar with the conference, it was proposed by Bolivian president Evo Morales in the aftermath of the COP15 conference in Copenhagen last December. While that conference was billed early as “Hopenhagen”, this week’s meetings in Cochabamba, Bolivia hold the real seeds of hope for a global response to climate chaos that is rooted in justice, equity, and historical accountability, and led by global social movements of workers, farmers, and the poor.

What’s at stake?

While the world needed and hoped for a responsible and sufficient (if not radical) response to climate change, or at least a solid step in that direction, instead what we got in Copenhagen was more of the same: corporations and developed countries trying to extend their advantage and wealth. The class character of the debate was striking. One the one hand, delegates from Global South and Indigenous communities who are least to blame for emissions and are facing the loss of the livelihoods and homelands were demanding strong action now. On the other, economic powerhouses like the US, which consumes about a quarter of the global energy supply, refused to be accountable for the environmental impacts of their economies and way of life.

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