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For many years, Funders for a Just Economy (FJE) has held a yearly policy briefing to engage its members on specific policy issues that affect middle and low-income workers. In a fundamentally shifting political and power map, this year’s policy briefing updated members with our current understanding of the major forces and players that impact worker justice. FJE members engaged in strategic conversations about the decline of organized labor, economic discrimination based on migration status and gender, the future of work, emerging...

The uprisings in Ferguson, MO, in response to the police killing of Michael Brown, have awakened national attention to racially biased policing. This has occurred amidst a growing national consciousness that the criminalization of people of color and low-income communities is a mechanism of the racial and economic injustice that prevents the full civic participation of communities of color in their communities – in education, jobs, housing, and elected representation.

Following are resources that might be helpful when considering how your philanthropic institution might support...

CampaignZERO presents a comprehensive package of policy reforms to end police violence in America. It encourages people to petition their elected representatives to implement 10 policy solution areas at the local, state, and federal level of government to achieve an America where police do not kill people.

Leadership Conference Education Fund annual publication that chronicles civil and human rights issues pending before the three branches of government, and other, emerging issues like the potential for big data to supercharge discrimination against disadvantaged communities. The 2015 volume addresses police misconduct.

Read the 2015 Civil Rights Monitor .

As a first step in establishing a framework and priorities, the Integrated Rural Strategies Group commissioned a scan of rural organizing work, Voices from the Field: Rural Organizers on What They Need from Funders . From this scan, the group has gained literacy in the organizing work...

In July 2018, Neighborhood Funders Group and the Right To The City Alliance hosted a Funder & Field Convening alongside the Homes For All Member Assembly in Atlanta, GA. Grantmakers met with grassroots leaders to strategically align and move more resources to support housing justice efforts happening throughout the country. The convening included workshops on investing in long-term narrative shift, a funder tour through Atlanta with the ...

Two new cutting edge and groundbreaking reports looking at the nexus of work, race, gender, and class were recently released at the conference State of Black Workers in America at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York. The first report, And Still I Rise: Black Women Labor Leaders’ Voices, Power, and Promise is a photo-...

Alabama can be described for many reasons as ground zero for historic and influential grassroots organizing, movement building, and successes in civil rights and economic policy. Decades of disinvestment and economic discrimination, changes in growth industries from agriculture to iron, steel and coal, to the auto, retail and service sectors, and deep structural racism and gender-based bias in the labor market has resulted in major challenges to the economic stability of low-income families and communities...

We believe that our collective investments in housing, education, health, transportation, food security, and jobs will fail if we do not also proactively work to divest this nation’s resources from criminalization. Divest/Invest: From Criminalization to Thriving Communities , an intersectional toolkit website created by Funders for Justice , helps grantmakers connect with funder colleagues and groups or campaigns working to adress how criminalization impacts youth, civic engagement, immigrant rights, rural...

Below are several of the reports and readings that supported our learning in Project Phoenix, a year-long cohort collective learning program for funders exploring fronts ranging from local economies and climate justice to worker co-ops under the frame of a “just transition” or “solidarity economy” or “economic resiliency” or “new economy.” Learn more about it here.

General

• Just Transition Framework — Movement Generation
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In the face of COVID-19, Amplify is stretching from our core! We maintain our central belief that community power drives just and equitable development, and feel strongly that all funders should:

• Give more than you ever thought possible. As a time-limited pooled fund, we are reallocating budget items so we can distribute as much in direct support as possible. We hope you give at the maximum level possible even if that’s above the 5% minimum endowment payout or your current averages.

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The past several days have brought more police killing of black people, more unjust court rulings, and more cities and communities rising up in collective power to demand justice. Say their names:

• Keith Lamont Scott , Charlotte, NC
• Terence Crutcher , Tulsa, OK
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