Liberation Ventures

Reparations is on the trajectory of other successful social movements, which saw gradual increases in public support over time before reaching political success. In 1999, when California became the first state to legalize domestic partnerships for same-sex couples, support for same-sex marriage was 35%—roughly where support for comprehensive reparations is today. Just 12 years later, marriage equality reached 50% support. Support for marijuana legalization grew even more quickly. In 2005—as medical legalization was beginning to gain traction—support for recreational marijuana legalization was at just 36%. By 2011, when the first states passed legalization, support was at 50%. While such timelines are ambitious, previous analyses highlight a similar upward trend in the reparations movement. Support for cash payment reparations—the most controversial element of reparations—has doubled in the last 25 years, reaching at least 30% in the last few years. Additionally, 19% of Americans neither support nor oppose reparations, indicating a significant neutral or persuadable population. Said another way: more Americans support or are neutral about comprehensive reparations than are opposed. Learn more about current public beliefs and sentiments about reparations, which can be used to build the strategies we need to win. https://lnkd.in/gDUAnUX2

Join us in reminiscing about the New Jersey Reparations Narrative Symposium! In February, Liberation Ventures got together with our friends at New Jersey Institute for Social Justice and International Center for Transitional Justice in Newark, NJ for a powerful day of community building. Activists, artists, and organizers came together to strategize and share their visions for reparations. We explored the cultural and political landscape, discussed funding opportunities, and celebrated the role of the arts in advancing Black liberation. Thank you to everyone who participated and contributed to this vital conversation. Special shoutout to the brilliant event organizers Trevor Smith (BLIS), Jean-Pierre Brutus (New Jersey Institute for Social Justice), and Virginie Ladisch (ICTJ) who made this all happen so gracefully. Watch the video to hear their reflections, as well as Robin Rue Simmons (FirstRepair), Aria Florant (LV), & more. Together, we’re building a transformative narrative for and with the reparations movement! *Thank you Garrison Hayes for supporting the documentation of this historic day.

Last month Liberation Ventures released our first Reparations Beliefs and Sentiments Poll, a comprehensive review of where the country currently stands. The 2024 Reparations Beliefs and Sentiments Poll is the first in a series of regular polls designed to track changes in public opinion on reparations over time. This ongoing effort will provide a clear picture of how public attitudes toward reparations evolve, helping to inform the movement’s strategies and objectives. This poll has huge potential as a tool for the movement in a variety of ways: * Informing campaign strategies with public opinion data * Supporting decision making about resource allocation with data  * Telling data-driven stories * Designing policies that reflect public desires * Evaluating progress over time As the reparations movement grows, understanding public opinion will remain a crucial part of our strategy. By leveraging polling data, we can make informed decisions, tell compelling stories, design policies that resonate with the public, and track our progress over time. Read more & share: https://lnkd.in/gHuKJu4e

Reflecting on the great time we had at the Prosperity Now Summit last month! We co-hosted a terrific panel with the brilliant Nkechi Taifa, Esq. of the Reparation Education Project, Nicole Carty of Get Free Movement, with LV’s CEO Aria Florant and Becina Ganther (our Senior Grantmaking Analyst) moderating. At “Bridging Philanthropy and Reparations: The Reparations Grantmaking Blueprint”, we spoke to the history of reparations, the importance of investing in narratives to push the movement forward, and also addressed the fact that we cannot close the racial wealth gap without #reparations. It’s always a joy to meet up with our movement partners and familiar faces in-person. We were happy to connect folks from National Black Cultural Information Trust, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, The Gro Fund, and many more at a happy hour nearby!

On Monday, October 7 at 6:30pm, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice and The Environmental Justice Committee will meet for the seventh of nine virtual public sessions of the New Jersey Reparations Council to share its work and hear input from community members. What role do you think environmental justice should play in reparations for slavery in NJ? Why is it important to address environmental justice in relation to reparative justice for slavery? How do you define environmental justice in terms of reparations? What does it look like to you? Join the conversation and raise your voice. https://lnkd.in/gYikBjmv

For Nonprofit Quarterly, Kavon Ward and Hannah Green of Where Is My Land published “Where Is My Land? The Struggle for Black Land Recovery”. Inside, Where Is My Land discuss their work using advocacy and legislation to return stolen land back to Black families. “By 1910 the amount of land owned by Black Americans was as high as 19 million acres, or about 14 percent of all titled land. By 1997, however, Black Americans owned only 1.3 percent of all titled land, a 90 percent decline. The loss has been conservatively estimated at $326 billion, reinforcing the nation’s enormous racial wealth gap.” While they have secured wins for folks like the Bruce Family of Manhattan Beach, other families face serious obstacles when it comes to receiving reparatory justice for stolen property. In this article, Where Is My Land unpack the history of Black land loss, efforts toward reparations as well as resistance, and also opportunities to resource this powerful movement. #LVxMP https://lnkd.in/g_hkn-JP

Please help spread the word about these three job opportunities in the reparations space! - Get Free is hiring a Part-Time Development/Fundraising Contractor to attract and retain new large donors and foundations for our c3 and c4 work. Get Free is a new organization building a youth-led movement to repair past harms, remove ongoing barriers to equality, and realize a future where freedom is for all. They are quickly building out the team and infrastructure of people for campaigning and organizing for 2024 and beyond. https://lnkd.in/gm8v8m9q - The Georgia Resilience and Opportunity (GRO) Fund is seeking a full-time, salaried Policy and Advocacy Senior Manager. The Policy and Advocacy Senior Manager will play a pivotal role in advancing our mission through strategic policy initiatives and advocacy efforts in Georgia. The role will work closely with stakeholders, government officials, community leaders, and coalition partners to influence policy decisions that impact our constituents and communities across the state. https://lnkd.in/e48v7tMT - Kinfolk is a pioneering nonprofit organization harnessing augmented reality (AR) technology to empower and amplify the stories of Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Queer communities in public spaces. They are seeking a dynamic and data-driven Social Media Content Marketing Manager to strengthen our digital communications strategy and expand our impact. This role will be crucial in developing and managing our digital communication funnels, creating tailored content for different audience segments, and converting their social media followers into engaged community members and supporters. https://lnkd.in/geYKZ7KQ

Philanthropy has often perpetuated the very inequities it aims to solve. Confronting and redressing the harmful aspects of our legacies, while difficult and uncomfortable, will only make us more effective and trusted in communities at the heart of our mission.       This was the core of a wonderful discussion I recently had on reparative frameworks in philanthropy with Aria Florant. As a health philanthropy, RWJF’s work is centered on addressing health inequities. Embracing a reparative framework will mean more explicitly rebalancing our work toward efforts that target the historical root causes of health inequities, including those we have perpetuated.     This includes addressing the structural racism that undergirds the U.S. tax and caregiving systems in our efforts to support flourishing families and widen economic inclusion. It also includes expanding our nascent support for reparations to address the racial wealth gap, which has a clear, direct impact on health and wellbeing.      A reparative framework also means engaging in a truth and repair process to examine and rectify our own role in perpetuating health inequities:   ▪️ Our actions and inaction over time  ▪ Whose interests have driven decisions about our grantmaking and investments  ▪ Which institutions we have over- and under-resourced  ▪ The material outcomes of our work on communities most impacted by health inequities  ▪ The incomplete narratives that institutions tell to protect brands while leaving intact injustices faced by communities     Looking back and inward is necessary to understand unhelpful institutional cultures that persist, to adopt strategies that right past wrongs, and to sustain and accelerate the incremental shifts we already have been making.      This is why I especially appreciated hearing Aria share about Liberation Ventures’ work to build a culture of repair – which is more than one reparative action, but rather a culture and cycle of reckoning, acknowledgement, accountability, and redress to disrupt ongoing and future harm. Thank you Asset Funders Network for encouraging this dialogue.      I’d love to learn about how others are applying reparative frameworks in your philanthropic work. What challenges and successes have you encountered?  

We are excited to announce Liberation Ventures’ “2024 Reparations Beliefs and Sentiments Poll” in partnership with Princeton University researcher Christina Pao. In the last 5 years alone, 23 U.S. cities and states have established commissions to study reparations and passed reparations policies. But we have needed data about public beliefs and sentiments to paint a clear picture of the future of this growing movement. The 2024 Reparations Beliefs and Sentiments Poll provides a comprehensive review of public perceptions among U.S. adults with regard to reparations and is the first of its kind. Princeton University survey experts and Liberation Ventures conducted a nationally representative poll of over 5,000 people. Our goal is to give the racial justice movement a comprehensive and honest view of public perceptions of reparations among U.S. adults. Some key findings from our poll: • 36% of people express some support for comprehensive reparations, double the support since 2002 • 68% or respondents report at least some familiarity with the concept of reparations • 45% of respondents believe that the legacies of slavery, including legalized racial discrimination and segregation, affect Black people today Thank you to the folks at Princeton for partnering on this important work. Please share widely! #reparations https://lnkd.in/gwDD5ERx

What is the future of media? What kind of media and technology system is worth fighting for? On Friday, October 4, Media 2070, MediaJustice, Free Press Action and Black River Life are hosting “Chicago's Black Future Newsstand”. This is an opportunity to reckon with the media, political, and narrative harm that’s taken place, wrapped in a defiant celebration of the truths that have persevered and the abundant possibilities of media and tech repair. There will be an immersive art installation taking participants through the rise and resistance of Black Chicago, toward a future that's abundant with repair. https://lnkd.in/eWAWd5Gb