Resourcing Strategies to Dismantle White Supremacy and Invest in the Regenerative Economy: Learnings from the Maestra cohort

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SESSION 2- Defunding the Police and a Just Transition: Divestment and Reinvestment Strategies

***If you registered for session 1, you will need to register again for session 2***

***If you did not register for session 1 and/or missed it for any reason, we are welcoming new participants who commit to watching the recording and doing the pre-readings, which we will send to you upon registration***

Register for the second session here by Friday, August 14.

In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis and uprisings in response to the state-sanctioned murders of Black people, philanthropy is faced with an increased sense of urgency to align its priorities with those of grassroots social and racial justice movements. Our sector is being called to adopt funding strategies to dismantle white supremacy and anti-Blackness, including defunding the police, and to avoid reformist approaches that uphold the current power structures and systems of harm. As we shared in a recent Medium post:

“Police reform is a false solution, one that merely addresses the symptoms of a problem without addressing its root causes, and will in fact worsen the problem over the long term. It is a false solution because it further resources a racist system that has violently oppressed Black and Brown people to achieve its primary aim of protecting capital, private property and the interests of the wealthy.”

In order to build a world in which Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities can truly be free, philanthropy must redistribute wealth, democratize power and shift economic control to communities. This includes supporting grassroots organizing work that builds new forms of economy and community-governed alternatives to public safety.