Spring 2021 Newsletter
Letter from the co-directors
Dear Friends,
This issue’s Renegade Moment of Beauty is a print by Illustrator and Muralist Kah Yangni.
Spring officially arrives this weekend. As we emerge from a hard winter, walloped by devastating storms, the ground is thawing and seeds buried long ago are sprouting. At the Hive Fund, we are doing our part to nurture a mighty ecosystem of visionary leaders and stalwart organizations meeting this moment for change. The more they flourish, the closer we all come to climate, gender, and racial justice. Our grantee partners, 90% of which are led by Black, brown, and Indigenous women, have been racking up successes on shoe-string budgets and are ready to scale up. From stopping global LNG and petrochemical projects and massive freeway expansions to helping our multi-racial democracy deliver on its promise, these organizations are winning immediate benefits and building momentum for more action. In this issue we share highlights from conversations with some of their leaders about their winning strategies and opportunities to capitalize on them in 2021.
Warmly,
Melanie Allen & Erin Rogers
Co-Directors
The Hive Fund grieves the eight lives lost in Georgia. We acknowledge America’s long history of anti-Asian and misogynist discrimination and condemn the white supremacist rhetoric that has led to increased violence against AAPI community members (mostly women) across the country. As Phi Nguyen at Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta said, “That the Asian women murdered yesterday were working highly vulnerable and low wage jobs during an on-going pandemic speaks directly to the compounding impacts of misogyny, structural violence, and white supremacy.” We continue working to address the root causes of this violence and hate.
voices from the field
We asked some of the Hive Fund’s grantee partners to share wins, lessons learned and opportunities to scale their organizing and advocacy work for climate, gender and racial justice in 2021 and beyond. Read highlights of our conversations below, and visit our Learning Lab for a deeper look.
Sharon Lavigne, center. Photo by L. Kamisu Harris.
Sharon Lavigne, Founder of RISE St. James
RISE St. James and allied groups in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley have successfully put the brakes on a one of the world’s biggest petrochemical manufacturing complexes.
“Industries come to Black communities because they think no one’s going to say anything. They think no one is going to fight. But they’re wrong.”
Colette Pinchon Battle, Executive Director of Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy
Gulf South for a Green New Deal, a frontline-led regional formation of nearly 200 groups working for climate, racial, and economic justice, is poised to shape recommendations for meeting Louisiana’s new goal of cutting global warming pollution 40-50% by 2030.
“Our region-wide organizing efforts are paying off, and we're starting to win in a part of the country that most had written off.”
Dr. Bakeyah Nelson, Director, Air Alliance Houston
During the extreme winter weather event last month, large oil, gas and petrochemical plants in Texas located disproportionately in Black and brown communities released massive quantities of harmful gases. Thanks to groundwork laid by Air Alliance Houston and others, there is now public data and public pressure in place to hold these more industries accountable.
“For too long, Texas decision-makers have treated communities of color and working-class neighborhoods as expendable while giving fossil fuel corporations everything they want. We’re working to make sure no communities are seen as expandable as we create a more equitable and sustainable future.”
Bekah Hinojosa, Sierra Club’s Permian-Gulf Just Transition
Under intense pressure from frontline Latino and Indigenous communities in Brownsville, Texas, financial backers of a planned liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project there recently pulled their support.
“A global tide is turning. Texas frontline communities working with activists in Ireland and France have indicated to the world that importing dirty fracked gas is a terrible investment and would devastate both public health and the climate.”
Wanda Mosley , Black Voters Matter’s National Field Director
Black voters in Georgia shattered turnout records in 2020. This level of civic participation was the result of long-term organizing by deeply rooted community organizations like Black Voters Matter.
“If funders would continue to believe in us, trust us and give us the space to determine the best way to do our work, we can continue to see this type of success.”
What we’re reading
If you only read one book this year, let The Sum of Us by Heather McGee be the one. Incredibly thorough research and deep analysis is synthesized into beautiful and inspiring prose. In order to take big collective action on issues like the climate crisis, we must address racism that divides us and denies all of us “nice things,” and work toward solidarity that delivers dividends. It’s the political education spinach we all need baked into a delicious cake.
Don’t miss
The Hive Fund is hiring program officers, a communications director and an operations coordinator. Help us spread the word!
NDN Collective, a Hive Fund partner, collaborated with the Stanford Social Innovation Review for this in-depth series on Decolonization and Radical Indigenous Futures
welcome
We are honored and thrilled to announce three new Hive Fund Advisory Board Members! Visit our Advisors page to learn more about them.
Iris Gonzalez, founding Coalition Director for The Coalition for Environment, Equity and Resilience (CEER).
Felecia Lucky, President of the Black Belt Community Foundation (BBCF)
Frances Roberts Gregory, ecowomanist ethnographer and feminist political ecologist