Organizational Accountability Practices

We believe that our vision of a racially and economically just world in which land, wealth, and power are shared requires us to be in accountable relationship with poor and working class communities and people of color.

We know we do this imperfectly and are always seeking to earn trust, grow, and learn.

We are a multi-class, multi-racial organization. Resource Generation was founded by a group of social justice funders led by multi-racial and multi-class teams of people, along with a group of young people with wealth. From its founding, Resource Generation has always had a board with members from poor, working-class, and middle-class backgrounds.

As of April 4, 2017, these are our most current accountability practices:

• Fifty percent of our board is from poor, working, or middle class backgrounds, and is also 30 percent people of color.

• Our staff has also historically been multi-racial and multi-class. Currently our staff is almost 60 percent from poor, working class, and middle class backgrounds and is 50 percent people of color. We have an internal staff anti-oppression leadership team that is charged with making sure our organizational practices reflect our anti-oppression values.

• Our dues-paying membership is multi-racial and multi-class. Advocate members are members from poor, working class, and middle class backgrounds and make up 10 percent of our membership. We are holding spots for Advocate members on our new National Member Council to ensure that this member leadership body is multi-class. Young people of color with wealth are 10 percent* of our dues-paying membership. People of color with wealth make up 17 percent of our broader network (they are active in chapters or have attended events). It is an organizational priority to recruit, retain, and center the leadership of young people of color with wealth in Resource Generation.

• We hire an advisory team of multi-class movement leaders for our Making Money Make Change conference to shape the program and agenda.

• We seek to compensate labor at a fair living wage, including staff, interns, advisors, consultants, and workshop and conference presenters.

• As of January 2017, we have joined the steering committee of the national coalition of groups organizing the People’s Climate March, a broad range of organizations including frontline communities, labor, and environmental justice groups fighting for climate, jobs and justice. As a member of the steering committee we pay dues and are contributing our labor, people power, and other resources to support the goals of the broader coalition.

• On the chapter level many chapters collaborate with social justice community foundations and grassroots organizations led by people of color and poor and working class communities. Our goal is to have every Resource Generation chapter working in partnership and accountable relationship with frontline communities through long-term collaborative campaign work and goals.

We believe that a key way to practice accountability is to do work together in multi-class relationships in all areas of our organizing, showing up day after day, making mistakes, learning from them, and showing up again. If you have feedback about our practices, please reach out to the staff organizer in your area or Yahya Alazrak, Executive Director. Staff details are available on our website. 

*of the top 10 percent of wealth holders in the country, 12 percent are people of color.