Convening of cohort organizations in February 2024

Read the report back from our focus groups with community organizers in Southern California:

"I'm worried about being priced out of my apartment. I'm worried about being elderly and homeless on the street. And when I think about my skill set, I have the skill set to make a lot more money, and I don't even like talking about that. But when things get more expensive . . . I can't help but think about that and think about, what's my long term plan to avoid the very outcomes I'm organizing against?" - Community organizer

All Due Respect is currently leading a regional project in Southern California focused on raising organizer wages, in partnership with the Weingart Foundation, the Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund and the James Irvine Foundation, along with a set of local base-building organizations. Throughout the course of the project, All Due Respect will engage organizers, organizational directors and funders to set new regional compensation standards and identify opportunities, gaps and shifts within funding practices that support organizations in implementing and sustaining competitive, transparent pay scales.

The seeds of this project emerged through a series of conversations in the first half of 2023, as All Due Respect interviewed 19 organizational directors and funders to assess current challenges and opportunities related to organizer recruitment and retention in Southern California. Through those conversations, it became clear that rising costs of living, years of underinvestment in organizing and a sector-wide normalization of low pay for organizers has created ongoing challenges related to compensation that contribute to organizers leaving their jobs, or in some cases, the field altogether. While addressing organizer pay is not a standalone solution, and goes hand in hand with an understanding of the systemic shifts required to alleviate the economic strain communities are facing, it is a direct opportunity to tackle broader dynamics, including organization and funder relationships, organizational transparency and how to fully value and invest in the roles organizers play in our movements. Moreover, as we spoke with practitioners and funders invested in tackling these challenges, we heard a hunger for a space to navigate these questions collectively.

Through the next year, All Due Respect will:

• Survey organizations across the 10-county Southern California region to produce a compensation study specific to the role of organizers, to uplift current data and understand how organizations are approaching organizer pay and benefits;

• Conduct a series of focus groups with organizers to further unpack how their pay, benefits and role in organizational decision-making around compensation impacts their decision-making around remaining in their roles and in the field of organizing;

• Convene a set of base-building groups, alongside participating funders, to learn from one another and identify opportunities, solutions and commitments to implement and sustain competitive, transparent pay scales, and supporting a subset of those groups to implement changes within their own organizations;

• Work with participating funders to assess grantmaking practices and approaches with the specific intention of improving working conditions for their grantees, and bringing additional funders who are not already engaged into the conversation.

This project is overseen by a Steering Committee of local leaders, currently made up of Hector Sanchez, Sabrina Smith, Felicia Jones, Maricela Morales, Vera deVera and Anthony Ng (former member: Aurea Montes-Rodriguez).

Organizational Cohort:

Ahri Center

California Black Power Network

Chispa

Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement

Dignity and Power Now

Future Leaders of America

Homies Unidos, Inc