Solidaire Network closed the Janisha R. Gabriel Movement Protection Fund on March 31st, 2021.
Launched in September 2020 and named in honor of Janisha R. Gabriel, Solidaire’s former communications lead who passed away on September 6, 2020, the fund was created in direct response to listening to our movement partners tell us about the urgent and immediate needs of movement leaders who were facing heightened risks, threats of violence and increased dangers due to the 2020 U.S. political climate.
To date, after reactivating the fund in response to the January 6 insurrection at the United States Capitol Building, we have supported a total of 85 organizations, individuals and collectives and moved over $3 million.
As Solidaire moves forward in its commitment to long-term grantmaking via our Black Liberation Pooled Fund and Movement Infrastructure Fund, we will incorporate learnings from the MPF into our grantmaking vehicles to ensure our movement partners have the resources they need for security and protection.
In the coming months, we plan to share learnings with the field and continue to collaborate with our philanthropic colleagues in order to prioritize mobilizing resources to movements in a sustained way in order for them to build and scale their safety and security infrastructures.
Review of the applications we received highlighted the critical need to not only support urgent requests for protection but also the need to shift philanthropic practices in order for organizers to:
– Have resources available to meet these heightened moments of threats and act of violence against them
– Deepen, create or expand their digital, physical and legal security infrastructures
– Integrate security and protection into their organizing strategy over the long term and have the internal capacity to address safety needs
– Believe it is possible to ask for what they need from funders and the progressive philanthropic sector; to know that their philanthropic partners are committed to supporting from a place of abundance and trust, not scarcity and suspicion
Additionally, philanthropy must resource the capacity builders and providers who responded to these needs and themselves were woefully under-resourced. Investment in their infrastructure is a key strategy for supporting movement protection.
We commit to ensuring these lessons are not forgotten and that we within progressive philanthropy make the necessary changes immediately so movements for collective liberation have the resources they need to keep themselves protected and safe.
If you are seeking funding for critical movement infrastructure, please consider applying to Solidaire’s Movement Infrastructure Fund.
