2018 ANNUAL REPORT
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When we speak, we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak. -Audre Lorde
LETTER FROM CLEOPATRA
FROM THE BRONX “It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” —Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets WHEN I THINK ABOUT CHOICES, I reflect on how often I’ve gotten to choose how I survive. I would say back then that I made decisions that were self-determined, but, in the light of politicization, I realized that I was moving through the plans of my oppressors. For most folks, our oppressions endow us a tunnel vision of options in order to not seek alternative ways of being. It makes us easier to control and less likely to imagine.
Working in a non-profit that was created and currently existing within Capitalism, I face the same challenges from when I was young but on a truly massive level. We are already so limited in our choices in how we create change, who we do it for, and when it gets to happen. Breaking out of the pattern of passive living is scary, but moving in your choices is the way we can celebrate our ancestors who could only dream alternatives, but never live them. At The Audre Lorde Project, we are a commitment to existing within a life of choice and imagining new ways of being, when we are told there are none. Join our movement to challenge our collective wisdom and contribute to it, for it is acting on our choices that will truly define our social change work, and not just what we “could” do. 2018 Annual Report | 3
CULTURAL WORK
TELLING OUR STORIES, BUILDING ALTARS, HOLDING SPACE
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I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood. - Audre Lorde
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TO PREPARE FOR TRANS DAY OF ACTION, WE COORDINATED CULTURAL WERK NIGHTS, where our amazing members came out to screenprint ALP t-shirts, help us prep materials, and decorate a gorgeous banner that led the march. At Cultural Werk Nights for Trans Day of Remembrance, members built altars to those we’ve lost as well as tributes of ourselves to affirm our power and that we are still here. We formed our first Design Guild, a member-led effort to share skills and lift up the beautiful art created by our community. TransJustice members held a storytelling workshop as part of our housing campaign, Brick by Brick, to shift the narrative on housing instability and homelessness for TGNC people.
EXPANDING LEADERSHIP INVESTING IN OUR PEOPLE ALP CONTINUES TO PRIORITIZE DEEPENING OUR LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT to ensure the
sustainability of our work and train the next generation of leaders for the liberation! 47 leaders went through our organizing institute, Daring to be Powerful. This year, we developed curriculum and added a second part to the program, deepening our members’ political education around power, oppression, and intersectionality. We held our first TransJustice School Part 2: Campaign Organizing Intensive. 6 TGNC leaders were able to gain skills on campaign development and implementation and begin canvassing city-wide for Brick by Brick. Our annual Interpreters Training tapped into the experience of 15 multi-lingual members to help create more language-accessible spaces in our movements.
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MOVEMENT BUILDING BUILDING COMMUNITY POWER
We generated collective power for racial, gender, and economic justice through: UPLIFTING the leadership and legacy of trans and gender non-conforming people of color at our 14th annual Trans Day of Action with over 2,500 participants
ORGANIZING our 8th annual Bed Stuy Pride, which brought over 250 participants (in the pouring rain!) to build safety and transformative justice in Central Brooklyn
COLLABORATING with BYP100, Black Lives Matter, and Black Alliance for Just Immigration to hold a #sayhername Vigil to honor TGNC people, particularly trans women of color, who we’ve lost to hate violence
PARTICIPATING in the Mass Bail Out action to free our folks and highlight how LGBTSTGNC people are left out of the criminal justice and abolition narrative, along with VOCAL, JustLeadership, and Brooklyn Community Bail Fund
MOBILIZING 30 members for a banner drop at the Brooklyn Museum’s First Saturdays as a call to action to end violence against Black trans and queer women
HEALING with 275 members on Trans Day of Remembrance to collectively grieve and lift up the legacies of TGNC siblings who have been taken from us too soon
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Without community, there is no liberation. - Audre Lorde 2018 Annual Report | 7
SUSTAINING WELLNESS
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Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare. - Audre Lorde
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OUR 3RD SPACE SUPPORT PROGRAM continues to generate strategies for collective care, access, and sustainability in our organizing with a host of events, including wellness days, community care days, our annual membership retreat to fight burnout, Recharge and Refresh, and swag swaps. We also offered on-site wellness spaces at all of our actions and events to provide aid supplies, connect participants with LGBTSTGNC healing practitioners of color, and support people with trauma from policing and violence.
BUILDING SAFETY AT ALP, WE RECOGNIZE THAT WE HAVE THE TOOLS TO KEEP OURSELVES AND EACH OTHER SAFE, without harmful intervention from the
state and police. We have continued to build the political education of our membership to resist the narrative that police and prisons keep us safe. We trained up more than 100 folks in community safety, bystander intervention, & de-escalation as well as training members and allies to provide community security for our direct actions to sustain our collective wellbeing. At our annual Trans Day of Remembrance event, we not only honored those we lost, but shifted the narrative away from individual perpetrators of trans violence to the systemic policing and criminalization of trans people. At our annual SOS Freestyle, we held workshops on Alternatives to 911 and were joined by the family of police brutality victim, Saheed Vassell. 2018 Annual Report | 9
GRASSROOTS FUNDRAISING ALP BELIEVES THAT GRASSROOTS FUNDRAISING IS PART OF OUR POLITICAL ORGANIZING because it helps us sustain our
movements and prioritizes organizing resources from the people most affected by our work, which increases our accountability to our people. Focusing on our grassroots helps us challenge the racial and gender wealth divide and push for wealth redistribution.
FY18 Funding Sources:
45% FOUNDATION FUNDING
11%
INDIVIDUAL GIVING
44% GOVERNMENT FUNDING
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In fiscal year 2018, we had:
332 Donors
Making
856
Donations
With an
average
gift of
$47
We are strongest at our grassroots! 2018 Annual Report | 11
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When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid. -Audre Lorde
Cover Image: Molly Adams
Audre Lorde Project 147 W 24th St, Fl 3 New York, NY 10011 212.463.0342 alp.org
Images: Janhavi Pakrashi Julieta Salgado Vincent Tsai Layout and Design: Design Action Collective info@designaction.org www.designaction.org