We’re celebrating a year of our New Songs Rising Initiative!
Dear Community,
Warm greetings. We are thrilled to invite you to an upcoming conversation with Indigenous women leaders, youth organizers, and community partners about the New Songs Rising Initiative(NSRI).
Launched in July 2021, the New Songs Rising Initiative is a collaboration between the Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples and Grantmakers for Girls of Color. This unique initiative expands opportunities for Indigenous girls in the U.S. and territories through grantmaking, convening and community building, mentorship and peer support; with specific emphasis on Indigenous cultural work and healing.
The New Songs Rising Initiative supports multi-generational healing and organizing amongst Indigenous girls, young women, and Two-Spirit and gender-expansive young people by bolstering their leadership and cultural vitality, reclaiming and revitalizing coming-of-age ceremonies, and advancing the creation of art, music, and poetry to advance healing and uplift their voices.
This month, we celebrate one amazing year filled with building community and sisterhood. On July 28th, from 2 p.m. ET (12 p.m. MT) to 3:30 p.m. ET (1:30 p.m. MT), Alex Gonzales (Pawnee/Xicana), Thriving Women Program Coordinator of the Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples, and Rana LaPine (Mohawk), New Songs Rising Fund Manager of Grantmakers for Girls of Color, will facilitate a conversation between New Songs Rising Initiative grantees as they discuss girls’ leadership and the importance of accessing traditional coming-of-age ceremonies.
Check back on our social media channel @g4gc_org for the webinar registration link.
In partnership,
New Songs Rising Initiative
(A collaboration between Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples and Grantmakers for Girls of Color)
HEART: “We are holding space for one another during this difficult time. The recent Supreme Court 6-3 decision to overturn Roe and Casey and uphold Mississippi’s 15 week ban on abortion deals a devastating blow to the most impacted communities in our country, namely Black, indigenous, and people of color – including Muslims – who are able to get pregnant.” HEART works nationally to promote sexual health, uproot gendered violence, and advance reproductive justice by establishing choice and access for the most impacted Muslims. Read their full statement
Jennie Agmi, The Libra Foundation: “We want to add to the chorus and urge funders who have traditionally watched from the sidelines, to take heed of this moment and join the fight. Abortion bans have always been a symptom, rather than the end goal of white supremacy, patriarchy, classism, and racism. It has been part of a larger fight to ultimately control the bodies of women, girls, trans, and gender non-conforming communities (TGNC) – with an intentional focus on keeping power away from communities of color.”
The Libra Foundation supports social justice movements that focus on transforming the criminal justice system, environmental and climate justice, and gender justice. View full article
Kavita Mehra, Sakhi for South Asian Women: “[The overturning of Roe v Wade] is essentially state-sanctioned, state-imposed, gender-based violence to women. It is time to pour whatever resources we can into funding and otherwise supporting the community-based organizations advocating for those whom this decision most endangers.”Sakhi is channeling its energy into supporting South Asian survivor-serving organizations across the country. Nationally, Sakhi has been working closely with South Asian SOAR to create a rapid response fund to distribute resources to member organizations directly impacted by the decision. Read op-ed article
Grantmakers for Girls of Color is excited to have been selected as one of three grant recipients for UKG’s Close the Gap Initiative — an effort to address pay inequity and economic injustice. This partnership enables us to directly support seven organizations working to increase girls’ and women’s access to economic prosperity.
The grants will support girls of Color’s capacity to engage in efforts to close the wage gaps that impact women and girls in their communities by building important skills including advocacy and organizing, journalism, storytelling, and participatory research with their peers. The grantee partners include Fannie Lou Hamer Institute for Social Advocacy and Action, Merze Tate Explorers, Sister to Sister International, Inc., IGNITE, AAPI Women Lead, HEART to Grow, Voces en Acción/Voices in Action, and Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico.
These efforts will help us better understand how girls of Color are uniquely impacted by pay inequity and what resources and strategies are needed to dismantle policies and conditions that prevent them from experiencing justice, equity and safety in the workplace as young people and in the long-term. Each recipient organization is addressing a particular aspect of this continuum. Read more about the initiative and selected grantee recipients on our website.
We’re deeply appreciative of UKG for recognizing girls of Color as important stakeholders in the larger dialogue around pay equity. Their support affirms our fundamental belief that if we directly support the capacity for girls, femmes, and gender-expansive youth to thrive now, we will all experience more just futures.
We invite you to learn more about these amazing organizations and this important initiative!
In June, Natives in Philanthropy and Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy came together to host the Power in Solidarity Conference in Seattle, Washington. Seventh Generation Fund’s Thriving Women Program Coordinator, Alex Gonzales, who partners on the New Songs Rising Initiative, was also in attendance with G4GC’s New Songs Rising Fund Manager, Rana LaPine.
Our grantee partner Willie Mae Rock Camp is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering girls and gender-expansive youth through music education and mentorship.
“Circuit bending is a way of rewiring a battery operated sound making toy to change the routing and sound it makes. We are circuit bending with our girls, and then we are guiding them on how to create music with their circuit bent creations,” said LaFrae Sci, Exec. Director /Director of Artistic Programming for Willie Mae Rock Camp.
“I was asked to present about our Digital Mentorship program at a conference last week in Boston. All of the other presenters were from Harvard, Tufts, Berklee College of Music and UNC,” Sci added. “They were stunned to realize we are giving our 5 – 17 year old girls access to the same information they are teaching their freshmen!”
Here is one of their 5 year old students deeply involved in their scientific method/process: Mess Around. Find Out.
Common Counsel Foundation and Native Americans in Philanthropy have announced that the Native Voices Rising 2022 grant pool is open for donors and potential applicants. These grant partners are collectively engaging tens of thousands of Native community members across the country while focusing on a wide range of critical issues – including environmental and climate justice, health and healing, voter and civic engagement, and youth and intergenerational engagement. Learn more about eligibility and apply. Deadline to apply is July 15.
July 2022
- 14: International Non-Binary People’s Day
- 24: International Self Care Day
- 28: NSRI Anniversary Webinar (details to come on our socials)
August 2022
- 9: International Day of the World’s Indigenous People
- 12: International Youth Day
- 19: World Humanitarian Day
- 26: Women’s Equality Day
Does your organization have a funding opportunity, upcoming conference, or other celebration centering girls of Color you want to share with the G4GC community? Or an important date to be included in our upcoming calendar section? Email them to [email protected] with “newsletter” in the subject line for consideration 6-8 weeks before the event or date.
*When G4GC refers to “girls of color” we include any cis, trans, gender-expansive, non-binary and/or any girl- or femme-identified person age 25 and younger who identifies as Black, Indigenous, Latin, Asian, Arab, Pacific Islander, and/or other People of Color.