Today is Friday AND…I am still carrying a glow from the two days we spent together this week. My mind is swirling with the wonderful ideas and questions that our group generated to help us think through how Forward Together can sustain our work with agency and autonomy. And my hope is that participants left with new insights, questions, and connections that can help inform their own work as well as our collective endeavor to resource to scale the social justice work in our movement.
The challenge of raising resources is not new. Recent developments within foundations which have resulted in more restricted funding while social justice organizing is evolving to be more expansive has exponentially increased tensions around scaling the work. But my spirits are buoyed by this particular moment when for the first time in my tenure as an executive director leading social change work, we are creating opportunities like the one we just shared with people from different walks of life putting our heads together to test and try something new.
At Forward Together, when we bring groups of people together to have amazing conversations with each other we want to be able to leverage the gifts that emerge. A group of us met yesterday to plan out how we will carry forth the work that came out of out two days together and we are excited about engaging those who are interested in joining us for the ride, in whatever configuration that may be. We will be sharing information in the next few weeks about next steps and ways to engage.
I am excited about the community that we created together in tackling this big thorny question. I look forward to how these connections will link to the other spaces in the movement in which others are leading or participating. We will be sharing what we are learning throughout the process.
Most of all, I am deeply grateful for the generosity of spirit, inquiry, and innovation that each participant brought to our time together.