Our Future Is At Stake – Fortify Movement Building in the South To Forge Our Path to Liberation

To say that it’s been a long and difficult year is an understatement. As this nation speedtracks to a white supremacist anti-immigrant, anti-trans, anti-worker authoritarian police state, we implore you to fund the infrastructure that resources and protects frontline grassroots communities led by directly-impacted people to keep fighting, keep dreaming, keep organizing, keep building towards a new future.

SVA’s Block & Build Rapid Response Fund launched in April 2025 to support grassroots organizations in responding rapidly in their communities. Since it launched, Block & Build has awarded 19 grants totaling $50k to grantees in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, Alabama and Louisiana. Key issues that organizations are responding to include anti-trans legislation, anti-immigrant legislation, housing justice, rights of the undocumented, ICE and homeland security investigations and local land policies.

Why the U.S. South

1. The U.S. South is home to the largest regional population (39%) highest Black population (56%), the highest number of people living in persistent poverty (54.9%), has the lowest labor unionization (6% as opposed to national average of 12%) and lowest education and literacy rates in the country.
2. Has a history of the most inhumane structures of racism, exploitation, and state-sanctioned violence against QTBIPOC people, immigrants, workers, and economically under-resourced communities. The atrocious history of the enslavement and subjugation of Black people and government-sanctioned racial discrimination and segregation in housing, job opportunities, and education explain much of the vast disparities shaping the South today.
3. Due to strategic disenfranchisement of Black & Brown communities and other attacks on democracy, right-wing movements have gained footholds in Southern States and advanced laws that harm our most vulnerable people and are then exported to the rest of the country.
4. Despite these challenges, the strongest social justice movements were born in the U.S. South – the Civil Rights and Black Freedom Movements, and in North Carolina the birth of the Sit-In Movement and the launch of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s and the birth of the Environmental Justice Movement in the late 1970s.
5. The South receives less than 3% of national philanthropic dollars.

SVA organized the first Southern Summit in Durham, NC in July 2024, a three-day convergence of organizers and activists from across the region to respond to the political turbulence and impending rise of fascism and white supremacy. Rooted in the South, where beacons of progressivism abound but often go unnoticed, the summit strategically positioned us and our partners to build intersectional power to face the political moment.

Why Southern Vision Alliance 

1. Southern Vision Alliance is the largest social justice intermediary in the South fiscally sponsoring and building infrastructure to nearly 50 frontline grassroots organizations.
2. Our Queer Mobilization Fund (QMF) is the largest grassroots community re-granting fund prioritizing and supporting queer and trans people of color on the frontlines for struggles for freedom and liberation to build power for and within queer communities in the South having distributed $1 million to 170 QTBIPOC-led initiatives across the Southeast.
3. Our People’s Solidarity Hub (PSH), located in Durham, NC’s historic Lakewood neighborhood, is a vibrant community and movement space offering affordable venues for meetings, training sessions, and events. PSH now hosts over 300 gatherings annually – reflecting the urgent demand for accessible organizing spaces amid rapid gentrification.
4. Our Block & Build Rapid Response Fund provides flexible and timely resources to frontline groups confronting escalating authoritarian threats, hate incidents, and violence in their communities.
5. In response to the rise in authoritarianism we launched our Power Building program to gather grassroots leaders and strengthen local power-building, foster collaboration, and equip organizations with the skills they need to sustain their work long term.

2024 SVA end-of-year staff party with some members of SVA staff.

Why now

1. Now in this chaos and crumble of institutions established upon white supremacy and domination as well as the relentless grip of fascism is the time to invest in building a coherent and intersectional movement rooted in the South.
2. Our role as a grassroots intermediary is critical to simultaneously dismantling oppressive systems while creating new, liberatory ways of being and organizing.
3. Our rapid response funds enable us to act quickly and responsively to support our partners.

SVA ecosystem continues to grow with four new sponsored projects, including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a group standing in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for liberation. Although SJP focuses their efforts most directly on Palestinian solidarity, they also advocate for the liberation and self-determination of all oppressed and marginalized peoples and take a firm stance against discrimination on the grounds of race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, social class, religion, or ability. Photo Credit: Grace Richards.

Fortify the Movement, Donate to Southern Vision Alliance.