From PolicyLink: “This labor of love is guided by the brilliance of 56 grassroots organizers and housing advocates who came together during 2022 to define and build a housing justice narrative. We recognize that in this moment, we have both the resources and the will to create a future in which every person has all their basic needs met.”

“Time and time again, research shows that the majority of Americans believe that housing is a basic need for people to thrive. Americans want action to address existing inequities in housing. We want to look out our windows and see our neighbors, and not wonder if they are renters or homeowners.”

“The Housing Justice Narrative Toolkit offers a scaffolding for us to stay centered in the future we are reimagining. This toolkit grounds the core truth of housing justice, supporting our ability to speak to a base of individuals most aligned with housing justice in authentic, resonant ways. It guards against the distraction of the opposition by offering opportunities to avoid the pitfalls of repeating the same stories we have been told or continue to tell, that haven’t moved us toward housing for all.”

“The toolkit is rooted in the understanding that we already know the policy solutions, we just need a different way to intensify the narratives that support these policies — a clear, compelling housing justice narrative is that way. The toolkit provides a scaffolding for embedding a housing justice narrative that can create a new tipping point in public consciousness and create the conditions necessary to advance housing justice and broaden our base. The Housing Justice Narrative Toolkit is designed to support your work, from narrative strategy guidance to grab-and-go messages and graphics, so please use and share widely.”

“The Housing Justice Narrative Project is a multi-year collaboration between PolicyLink, Race Forward, and Community Change supported by the Funders for Housing and Opportunity.”

Learn more about this initiative.

“In public health, we often talk about ‘closing the gap in health inequities’ in order to create conditions for optimal health for all. These discussions reflect a growing consensus that health is a human right, which sets the stage for a shared vision of health justice,” said Nineequa Blanding for Nonprofit Quarterly. “They also mirror ongoing efforts to achieve racial equity by addressing structural racism and its attendant injustices, in the process expanding the health focus from the individual to the collective and society. These conversations and the work they inspire position the field of public health as a major actor in helping to protect, promote, and preserve our well-being.”

“Health is a state of physical, mental, and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease. It is a ‘dynamic state of well-being emergent from conducive interactions between individuals’ potentials, life’s demands, and social and environmental determinants.’ Although our collective health and well-being depend upon mutuality and our ability to heal, these critical concepts are often missing from public health discussions centered on addressing health inequities.”

“A movement is underway to create spaces that allow for an exploration of practices to transform oppression—within our bodies, our communities, and the systems that perpetuate it. Even longtime freedom activist and scholar Angela Davis—who has more than 50 years of experience leading social justice movements—highlights such healing-based transformation in her work. Davis says, ‘Self-care and healing and attention to the body and the spiritual dimension—all of this is now a part of radical social justice struggles.'”

“While significant efforts are underway in local jurisdictions to address systemic racism as a public health crisis, strategies that foster community healing to address the harms caused by structural racism are not at the forefront of these efforts’ strategic plans. This prompts the question: what if healing justice efforts served as a guidepost, as the foundation of a collective vision, for all government strategies to address structural racism?”

“What would our future look like if we all operated from a place of healing? Arguably, it would be a world where we value wellness as liberation, appreciate our interdependence, are in-tune with our inherent capacity to heal, honor the wisdom of all cultures and bodies, and are guided by a shared understanding that our collective health is inextricable from our relationship with the earth. Healing justice is critical for catalyzing the type of systems transformation that enables such as a vision to become reality.”

Read the full article here.

From the MacArthur Foundation: Kristen Mack, Vice President, Communications, Fellows, and Partnerships, shares thinking on umbrella terms, which are intended to be inclusive but often come up short when discussing complex and evolving identities.

“Umbrellas provide shade, shelter, and protection. They also serve as a symbol of power and dignity. Umbrella terms, as an extension, are designed to cover a broad category of groups or things. BIPOC and LGBTQ+, two of the most well-known and frequently used umbrella terms, have power. They also have limitations.”

“We have increasingly heard that the very thing these umbrella terms were designed to do—include more people under one broad categorization—has not worked. In fact, they have had the opposite intended effect. More people feel left out than included.”

“While the term Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) is meant to be inclusive, it is imperfect and imprecise. Although BIPOC includes Asian and Latino/a/x people as well as other racial and ethnic groups, the acronym does not resonate with everyone it was meant to embrace. We must acknowledge that many individuals and communities do not see themselves represented by the term because they are not specifically named. We have heard from people—repeatedly, vehemently, and clearly—that they are offended by its use.”

“We first received that feedback during several conversations with grantees, peers, and affinity-based philanthropic organizations as part of our Equitable Recovery grantmaking. We went through an extended exercise of identifying characteristics that define what it meant to be a BIPOC-led, -centered, or -serving organization. Around that time, we began to use the term more frequently in our writing and communication, just as the rest of the U.S. and field of philanthropy was doing the same.”

“MacArthur is a learning organization. Learning is one of our values. As the lexicon evolves, we will continue to actively seek new understanding and knowledge and apply what we learn as we go.’

“Language conveys values. Language can be used to either support or challenge the systems we seek to dismantle. We want people to see themselves in the language we use—in our grant briefs, in our website copy, at our events, in our grantmaking, and in our work.”

“We hope that by consciously and intentionally focusing on our language that we are affirming the dignity of people of the people and communities we seek to serve.”

Read the full article here.

“Executives in professional social justice institutions, grassroots activists in local movements, and fiery young radicals on protest lines are all advancing urgent concerns about the internal workings of progressive spaces,” said Maurice Mitchell for The Forge. “The themes arising are surprisingly consistent. Many claim that our spaces are ‘toxic’ or ‘problematic,’ often sharing compelling and troubling personal anecdotes as evidence of this. People in leadership are finding their roles untenable, claiming it is ‘impossible’ to execute campaigns or saying they are in organizations that are ‘stuck.'”

“Movements on the Left are driven by the same political and social contradictions we strive to overcome. We fight against racism, classism, and sexism yet battle inequity and oppression inside our movements. Although we struggle for freedom and democracy, we also suffer from tendencies toward abuse and domination. We promote leadership and courage by individuals, but media exposure, social media fame, and access to resources compromise activists. We draw from the courage of radical traditions but often lack the strategy or conviction to challenge the status quo. The radical demands that we do make are so regularly disregarded that it can feel as if we are shouting into the wind. Many of us are working harder than ever but feeling that we have less power and impact. “

“There are things we can and must do to shift movements for justice toward a powerful posture of joy and victory. Such a metamorphosis is not inevitable, but it is essential. This essay describes the problems our movements face, identifies underlying causes, analyzes symptoms of the core problems, and proposes some concrete solutions to reset our course.”

“Here are some common tendencies that flow from the larger conditions we find ourselves in and the fallacies underlying those tendencies:”

Neoliberal Identity
Maximalism
Anti-Leadership Attitudes
Anti-Institutional Sentiment
Cherry-Picking Arguments
Glass Houses
The Small War
Unanchored Care
Disproportionality
Activist Culture

“We are closer than we think to such a reality. We must go through a humbling but necessary period of change to achieve it. We must learn how to synthesize lessons from the past and observations in the present. That means sitting in an awkward both/and place. We must call out fallacies that weaken us, even when it’s hard and we face criticism for it. And we must meet our problems with grounded solutions that are drawn from a sober assessment of the larger time, place, and conditions we find ourselves in. None of this, of course, will be easy. In fact, much of it will cause great discomfort. However, on the other side of the uncomfortable journey is an abundant, playful, and powerful home for our freedom dreams. Will we choose it?’
Read the full article here.

“For over 15 years, Sahar and I worked in proximity to one another as impact producers; strategists who lead campaigns to maximize the reach and impact of social issue documentary films…As impact producers, our role was to connect documentary films with people and organizations that could leverage the films to shift perceptions, behaviors, resources, legislation, narratives and power,” said Sonya Childress for Medium. “Both Sahar and I shared a belief in the transformative power of film, and a deep respect for the artistry of filmmakers. We also felt deep accountability to the communities who would be most affected — positively or negatively — by nonfiction work.”

“Before we launched in January 2022, we looked at the six grantmaking practices of Trust-Based Philanthropy and did an audit of the design of our programmatic and grantmaking plans. At every turn we asked ourselves: Will our processes communicate trust and honor the organizational leaders we aim to support?”

Give multi-year, unrestricted funding
Do the Homework
Simplify and streamline paperwork
Be transparent and responsive
Solicit and act on feedback
Offer support beyond the check

“We have already learned a great deal from our first round of the Organizational Grant Program that offers 2-year unrestricted funds. We invited proposals from close to 50 eligible organizations out of approximately 120 applicants, and with the support of a Review Committee and our Advisory Board, we awarded grants to 17 organizations.”

“We have already learned a great deal from our first round of the Organizational Grant Program that offers 2-year unrestricted funds. We invited proposals from close to 50 eligible organizations out of approximately 120 applicants, and with the support of a Review Committee and our Advisory Board, we awarded grants to 17 organizations.”

“As applications rolled in, we were shocked by the number of legacy organizations in our field that had yet to receive significant philanthropic support. Just as the research showed, organizations with decades of experience nurturing, training and championing filmmakers of color still had to make the case for the impact and value of their work.”

“What we have learned from our first year of operation, and our first round of funding, is that Trust-Based Philanthropy is more than a superficial check-list. Trust, respect and accountability are values that show up in every part of an organization’s DNA, and just as we work to extend trust, we work even harder to earn it.”

Read the full article here.

From Filmmaker Magazine: “The conversation about documentary impact has undergone a number of shifts since impact producing began to emerge as a practice within the documentary field around 20 years ago. Today it is almost expected that a social issue documentary film will be accompanied by an impact campaign to help ensure its story will reach audiences and motivate them towards social change, deeper engagement with a story’s themes and further learning.”

“The documentary impact enterprise has always focused on the power of particular films to build understanding and shift audience perspectives as the foundational starting point for action, whether that involves changing peoples’ behaviors, the choices they make, the steps they take to change institutions or policies, or inspiring them to build community. Successful impact campaigns can be discrete and focused, like the one accompanying Chelsea Hernandez’s Building the American Dream that aimed to educate audiences and key decision makers about the exploitation of construction workers in Texas and the need for rest breaks, and which contributed to the groundswell of coverage about the need for worker rights and protections. Among other shifts linked to increased presence and pressure, Texas Congressman Sylvia Garcia filed a federal bill to require rest breaks for all construction workers in July 2022.”

“In this environment, filmmakers of color can experience pressure to internalize the white gaze and spend precious time and energy providing context in their films for white audiences, shape storytelling to trigger an emotional response that aligns with impact goals centered around white audiences, or avoid images that might reinforce negative stereotypes about our communities. Storytelling like this waters down the depth and nuance of work made by people of color for people of color. The near-constant pressure to center the white gaze speaks to the perniciousness of white supremacy in our field.”

“Such pressures also rob filmmakers of color of the opportunity to speak directly to our own communities, unmediated by the white gaze or comprehension. People of color lose out on opportunities to prioritize our own concerns in conversations, examine our own biases, explore the nuances of our own experiences with each other rather than capitalize on essentialist identity politics.”

“Social change will be fueled by nonfiction storytelling that challenges and does not tolerate white supremacy, that adds nuance and strength to those ideas and eventually saturates public discourse. True social transformation for a society steeped in white supremacy will come from exposure to an abundance of storytelling by, for, and about people of color on our own terms, through our own lenses, whether white audiences can relate to those stories or not, whether white audiences can fully comprehend different experiences or not.”

Learn more here.

“Invisibility is deadly. When they don’t see us, we don’t exist,” said Crystal Echo Hawk (Pawnee) for Medium. “One of the biggest perpetrators of our erasure has been the multi-trillion dollar entertainment industry. Native American characters only make up between 0-.04% of primetime TV and films. What’s more, the 2021 Hollywood Diversity Report found Native representation in film has remained stagnant at 0.6%. Quite a stark difference from the 66.9% for white men. While these numbers are staggering, they are not surprising. They are part of the fuel that ignites our work to build pathways for Native creatives in the film industry.”

“My name is Crystal Echo Hawk. I am a citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma and the founder and Executive Director of IllumiNative, a Native woman-led racial and social justice nonprofit organization dedicated to building power for Native peoples by amplifying Native voices, stories, and issues. These statistics are from Reclaiming Native Truth, the largest public opinion and strategy setting research project ever conducted by Native peoples and the basis on which IllumiNative was founded. Led by this founding research initiative, we work to dismantle the invisibility, erasure, and toxic stereotypes that impact Native peoples today.”

“This past August, during one of Indian Country’s largest artistic events of the year, IllumiNative hosted the first annual “Indigenous Futures: Envisioning the Next 100 Years” at the centennial Santa Fe Indian Market. For two days, we invited Native creatives to speak and celebrate their accomplishments in building power in television and film, climate justice, politics, fashion, and more. More than an event, this was a moment to celebrate the power that Native creatives continue to build across all sectors. As part of our celebration of Native excellence, we invited Navajo filmmaker Shaandiin Tome to share her award-winning documentary, Long Line of Ladies. This film, which premiered at Sundance and screened at SXSW, follows a Karuk girl as she and her family prepare for her Ihuk, a traditional Karuk coming-of-age ceremony and has earned numerous accolades.”

“We know from Reclaiming Native Truth that 78% of audiences are interested in and understand the importance of increasing Native representation in Hollywood. What we need now from allies in the industry is to create space for Native peoples — for our stories, our dreams and our realities. Native filmmakers are ready and their time is now.”

Read the full article here.