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Older people often describe their work in social change organizations as sustainin social movement activity from the 1960s and 1970s, whereas younger people are trying to create new movements for change. People across generations noted that they currently did not feel a part of “a social movement.” The measure of movement building activity is dominated by aging leadership that refers to their own (orimagined) experience of movements in the 1960s and 1970s. New movements will evolve by learning from the movements of the past, and developing room for thecreation of new ideas/forms of movements for the future.
There are also issues of class, gender, immigration status, ability, sexual identification and orientation, among others that call for an analysis of how organizations integrate these issues into their work. The creation and understanding of identities for those outside of the structures of power is crucial in the work of social change organizations. Most assistance in this area is geared to majority culture groups who look for training on diversity. The need to develop a deeper understanding of these issues in social change groups is critical in developing movements that can relate across issue areas.
Social change groups must be both aware of and challenge the effects of dominant
Future Funding
•that movement activity cannot be accountable if it is funded from outside its constituency group, but most social change groups with paid staff are not membership or constituency supported Instead, they rely on funds from outside their base. Groups struggle over whether they are accountable to their constituents or to their funders.
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