Several years ago, when I first read Movement Generations’ Just Transition zine, From Banks and Tanks to Caring and Cooperation, this line really stood out to me: “If we are not prepared to govern, we are not prepared to win.” Back then, I interpreted governance as being relevant to the domains of our communities, cities, counties, state and nation. While workplace is referenced later in the passage, I only imagined this to apply to for-profit corporations, and didn’t pause long enough to think about how it could apply to my own nonprofit organization.
Fast forward to the present day. As Justice Funders becomes its own 501(c)3, we are intentionally building an organization whose culture and structure embody the values and principles of Just Transition including shared leadership, democratic decision-making and self-governance. This is the result of an 18-month long organizational development journey that involved both self-reflection as a staff as well as insights from our stakeholders who participated in a 10th anniversary evaluation project to identify our strengths, assess our contributions and offer recommendations for how to have the greatest impact moving forward.