The Transforming Movements Fund (TMF) is excited to announce the Fund has awarded $800,000 in renewal grants to eight grassroots organizations led by young, queer, and trans leaders. Grants include support for general operating, organizational development, and leadership development.
The TMF supports the bridging role that LGBTQ leaders play to support movements in becoming more connected, inclusive, and thus more powerful. To do this, the TMF invests in individual LGBTQ leaders, as well as the organizations where they make their political homes.
“In this political moment, LGBTQ young people are leading some of the boldest, most visionary organizing that recognizes how issue areas don’t exist in neat siloes,” said Liz Sak, Executive Director at the Cricket Island Foundation. “We are proud to be a donor to this fund because the young leaders it supports are winning empowering, liberatory campaigns and pushing movements to embrace the intersections of people’s identities.”
During this grantmaking cycle, organizations supported by TMF are engaging in non-partisan, power-building work that will position young, queer leaders of color to set agendas for their communities leading up to the 2020 election. Groups will use strategies such as storytelling, budget advocacy, civic engagement, grassroots rapid response, and more to win transformative and long-lasting change. TMF grantees will also continue to strengthen their membership networks and leadership pipelines, building up a strong base who can be activated and organized when critical opportunities arise.
The Fund’s grantmaking model is uniquely positioned to support organizations led by young, queer leaders in making an outsized impact. The TMF combines general operating support with capacity building grants that are highly responsive and individualized to each grantee’s self-determined needs. Grantees are increasingly customizing their plans to use organizational development funding, and identify areas such as strategic planning, finance support, management, and wellness as priorities. Leadership development support is being utilized for personal healing, political education, leadership programs, and cultural work.
Over time, the TMF’s approach to funding self-directed capacity building strengthens the intersectionality of groups’ organizing, and their internal and external sustainability.
The TMF is a donor collaborative supported by the Arcus Foundation, Cricket Island Foundation, Ford Foundation, Foundation for a Just Society, The Overbrook Foundation, and Anonymous Donors.
Read more about the exciting work TMF grantees will embark upon in 2020:
Blackbird will launch a story-telling lab for organizers, activists, journalists, and other media specialists to collaboratively produce stories, and will support the Movement for Black Lives to convene organizations and launch campaigns.
BYP100 will train chapters in budget advocacy for police divestment, launch the She Safe, We Safe policy platform, and engage in nonpartisan efforts to increase turn-out of young Black voters in cities with BYP100 chapters.
California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance (CIYJA) will launch closure training curriculum for prisons and detention centers, share their deportation defense curriculum, and cultivate community-led organizing efforts for just closures of detention centers.
Freedom, Inc. will develop a campaign to highlight state-sanctioned violence against women and queer folks, provide domestic and sexual violence services, and increase member participation in Freedom Schools trainings.
Khmer Girls in Action will secure ongoing funding for the city’s Children & Youth Fund, engage voters in conversations about public investment for youth development, and anchor a county-wide campaign to increase spending on youth development.
Mijente Support Committee will organize a series of presidential townhalls to bring Latinx issues and voices to the forefront, expand their No Tech for ICE campaign, and continue to provide political education and training for members.
Providence Youth Student Movement (PrYSM) will develop a grassroots defense network against deportations of Southeast Asian refugees, create a network of queer and trans people of color in Providence and surrounding areas, and develop avenues for youth leadership in school decision-making.
Bold Future (formerly Young Women United) will develop an Art and Organizing Institute with system impacted young people in southern New Mexico and launch a podcast series, “The Heart of New Mexico,” examining the impact of religious refusals (when healthcare professionals refuse to treat a patient because of their religion) on New Mexicans and their families.