Introducing Funding Freedom: Philanthropy and the Palestinian Freedom Movement
This report, published by Solidaire Action, looks at the extraordinary gap between the enormous amount of money raised annually to support continued Israeli apartheid and the amount raised to fight for Palestinian liberation. Funding Freedom exposes the strategies used to silence those who stand up for human rights and offers clear recommendations on how to overcome them. This report is a call for philanthropic partners to meet the moment and take an ethical stand on the side of human rights organizing.
Funding Freedom analyzes the current and historic conditions that curtail the resourcing of an increasingly visible movement for Palestinian rights. Drawing on four in-depth case studies and dozens of interviews with individual donors, foundation and funder network staff, and leaders of Palestinian organizations, it illustrates the current challenges and opportunities.
The report includes a number of important recommendations for funders who support or want to support Palestinian rights. In addition to providing clear guidance to funders facing external challenges, the report calls on them to do more to reverse harmful dynamics that have plagued philanthropy for decades, such as the marginalizing and silencing of Palestinian voices, dangerous political litmus tests, and harmful investing practices.
In Conversation with Sarah Schulman, sponsored by Jewish Currents (Copy)
The author and activist Sarah Schulman published a terrific oral history of ACTUP called “Let the Record Show.” We were in conversation about movement-building strategies then and now and what lessons from the ACTUP era are universal and which specific to that time. We touched on grief as political ritual, race and racism in multi-racial white majority movements, balancing insider/outsider strategies, with folks from ACT-UP chapters from all over the country chiming in to enrich the conversation. Take a look here
A Conversation with Dr. Marc Lamont Hill, Mitchell Plitnick, Sandra Tamari and Samia Shoman
Join me in a conversation on the occasion of the publication of Marc and Mitchell’s book “Except for Palestine,” with respondents Sandra Tamari and Samia Shoman. Organized by JVP Central Ohio. Register here
Supporting Our People (for Board members)
As a board member, you may be struggling about how to best support your organization and how or if your role should shift. You may also be dealing with your own changed circumstances and how to communicate changes in what you can offer. Building on the first two sessions, come hear what staff are thinking about, and how best to respond.
Hint: for staff leaders, if you want to open this conversation with your board members, passing along this invitation may be a good place to start!
Read reflections from the webinar here
Workloads Under Intense Stress
More work and less people to do it. Or the same work, but endless external factors making it hard to get it done. What is it fair to ask of staff, yourself, your members, your volunteers? How do you balance what may be existential circumstances for your org as a whole with your staff' needs and rights as workers?
Recommended for senior leaders
In the Absence of In Person
We've all become super proficient at Zoom, but our sense of trust, patience, fun, and care for one another may be eroding with the transactional nature of the endless Zoom meetings. We're in this for the long haul now--what can we do to renew and re-create the relationships that underpin everything?
This session is open to all
Read reflections from the webinar here
Webinar Series: Healthy Organizations in Pandemic Times
Some patterns are emerging as we've moved into the deep grind of being eight months into the pandemic, with no clear end in sight.
Most staff /leaders haven't seen each other since March, and the demands of parenting, caring for parents or other beloveds in our communities, dealing with social isolation, weathering sickness and its aftermath, dealing with ongoing and intense racism and white supremacy, and the stress and anxiety around the elections is, well, A LOT, especially when also trying to keep up with work.
I’m offering a space where leaders from different organizations can come together to talk about how these issues are affecting staff morale and workflow and how we can realistically plan for these conditions to likely continue well into 2021. I hope that in these sessions we can spark some good brainstorming, crowdsource some tips for what's working well, and help folks feel less alone in trying to get through this period with our people, our organizations, and our sanity intact.
Read some reflections from the webinars here