Sponsored Project Program
SVA supports groups, projects and campaigns working for environmental justice, anti-racism, women’s rights, youth empowerment, LGBTQ rights, worker’s rights, civil rights and disability rights that address social change through community organizing.
Southern Vision Alliance provides fiscal-sponsorship to groups, projects, and campaigns that have a long-term vision for equity social justice and have alignment around the following core values and principles:
- Movement first: less ego, more impact; Ella Baker school of leadership
- Movement work that is multi-racial, multi-national, multi-gender, multi-generational, and accessible in terms of language, physical ability, child/family-friendly, etc.
- Intersectionality, solidarity, and self-determination
- The centrality of an anti-racist analysis as part of addressing power and oppression in the US South
- Center the leadership of the most directly impacted
- Support local leadership and opportunities to build alliance across geography and communities
- Power through base-building, organizing, collective action, and deep leadership development which seeks to directly confront the root causes of oppression
How to Apply
Prospective Fiscally-sponsored Projects must meet the following criteria to be eligible:
- Must be located in the US South (Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas)
- A focus on grassroots organizing, activism, and long-term social change (not social service work)
- A clear understanding of the root causes of the problem they are working to resolve
- A priority for developing leadership from within the affected community
- A priority for collaboration and developing collective strategies to achieve total liberation
Southern Vision Alliance does not provide fiscal-sponsorship for:
- Organizations or programs whose primary work is around healing or social service/direct service models*
- Academic research that is not connected or directed by a strategy to advance a grassroots campaign
- Capital campaigns or building projects
*We recognize the significance of healing justice and social service/direct services. These are areas of work that are also crucial to sustaining our organizers and our movements. Unfortunately these are areas we cannot provide support to unless they are connected to power building work we define as base-building, organizing, collective action, and deep leadership development. We recommend organizations working on these projects to seek support from organizations that have more experience in this area. We are happy to share contact with organizations that may have better opportunities for alignment.
Current Sponsored Projects
Black Workers for Justice
The BWFJ is an organization of Black workers formed in December of 1982 out of a struggle led by Black women workers at a K-mart store in Rocky Mount, North Carolina against race and gender discrimination. After organizing a boycott of the local K-mart store and reaching out to workers at other workplaces and communities, Black workers and community activists from 10 counties met at the First Missionary Baptist Church in Fremont, NC in December 1982 to form BWFJ as a statewide organization.
Community Alliance for Public Education
Community Alliance for Public Education (CAPE)‘s mission is to build capacity and support leadership development of parent-led, educator-led, student-led and community-led organizations, and to create collaborative spaces in which all people can dream, strategize, and fight together to win the schools we all deserve.
Comite De Accion Popular
Comite de Accion Popular es un espacio para juntos aprender y tomar accion.
Carolina Youth Partnership Coordinator Fund
The Carolina Youth Partnership Coordinator Fund is a committee that provides administrative support to the Carolina Youth Power Fund (CYPF). The overarching goal of the CYPF is to connect as many young people to resources to support ideas and projects that actively take up civic and social justice issues. Young people between the ages of 13-25 and those leading organizations supporting young people may apply for grants of up to $1000 to fund an event or project.
Dangers of the Mind
Dangers of the Mind are the disrupters of the school-to-prison pipeline, by empowering underserved young students, as well as parents and community, through Social/Emotional Learning.
Durham Beyond Policing
Durham Beyond Policing is a grassroots campaign to divest from policing and prisons and reinvest municipal resources into supporting the health and wellbeing of Black & Brown community in Durham, NC. ICE and police out of our neighborhoods!
Good Neighbor Movement
The Good Neighbor Movement, started in 2017, is a Black-led, multiracial, queer-affirming alternative spiritual community that is inspired by the revolutionary life and ministry of Jesus, and drawing from diverse religious and wisdom traditions, to cultivate intentional relationships, work collaboratively, and pursue justice with diverse neighbors in Greensboro and beyond, to create inclusive, local communities that are abundant, just, and whole.
Feed Durham
Feed Durham is a mutual aid collective and community love project based in Durham, NC. This year we are disrupting root causes of hunger, and distributing our organizing blueprints to sustain hundreds of thousands of people across the South. We’re distributing groceries to folks, installing raised garden beds for families, developing a food demo and plant medicine web series, hosting outdoor photo shoots for unhoused folks that will allow them to walk away with framed or laminated photos of themselves/their families, and working with community to connect our neighbors with essential resources.
Movement to End Racism and Islamophobia
The Movement to End Racism and Islamophobia (MERI) is a network of North Carolina-based organizations. We have a mission to end racism and Islamophobia by building a movement that challenges all forms of oppression. We work with folks and organizations from every background to uplift all marginalized voices. Since we launched this network in early 2015, we have grown to a network of 15 organizations and have organized forums and actions throughout North Carolina.
Tranzmission
On April 2nd, 2001, Tranzmission was formed with a mission: to make the lives of nonbinary, transgender and gender nonconforming people in western North Carolina happier, healthier and safer through education, advocacy and support.
Robeson County Cooperative For Sustainable Development
Ready the Ground Education Fund
Red Tailed Hawk Collective
More information coming soon.
Tar River Education Fund
More information coming soon.
Refund Raleigh
Fruit of Labor
Serenity Fund
The Serenity Fund provides infrastructural support to the Serenity Hill Retreat and Training Center, a 501c3 nonprofit entity organized for educational and charitable purposes: to provide space for social justice leaders to rest, to connect with others across sectors of the movement, to hone ideas, and to connect with the land. This Center seeks to join with and complement sister endeavors across the region and the Global South.
Duke Mutual Aid
Duke Mutual Aid network formed out of the COVID19 crisis for the Duke/Durham community. However, mutual aid precedes this pandemic, existing in the Black Panther party’s survival programs since the mid-1900s and many more projects by indigenous, Black people, people of color, feminists, and people in the LGBTQ+ community. We honor and learn from those who came before us while experimenting in the present with our particular circumstances.
Southern Workers Assembly
The Southern Workers Assembly is a voluntary organization fighting for social justice. SWA believes Workers are the only social force that can challenge the capitalist class, force changes and redirect society towards social justice. We seek to organize the unorganized workingclass across the South. We are the bedrock of our communities. We are a social movement. The SWA believes that engaging and uniting rank and file and un-unionized workers in the US South around democratic principles of social justice unions is critical to building a politically conscious and transformative US workers movement.
Visibility Outreach Touch Engage
Visibility Outreach Touch Engage (VOTE), Inc. aims to deliver the country’s founding principle “for the people, by the people” through authentic narratives, or storytelling, and relevant communication channels and methods. We inform, engage, and mobilize new audiences to take action through education, advocacy, and the promotion of trusted messengers, meaningful communication, and dynamic, intentional tactics.
Grounded Possibilities
Grounded Possibilities exists to connect Black artists in NC with the knowledge and resources necessary to do impactful and cultural-focused environmental justice work.
South Carolina Housing Justice Network
The WELLS Healing Center
Together through these mechanisms, and using a Black feminist framework for healing, we
enhance wellness at the personal, relational, and collective levels.
NBLM Rosa Parks Education & Organizing
Mixtape Sureño
Brighter future institute
Brighter Future’s approach is grounded in the belief that effective civic and political leadership requires a holistic approach that addresses the needs of emerging leaders. Bridging grassroots community engagement and electoral politics in North Carolina, we believe Brighter Future’s integrated approach will
be a game-changer in challenging and overhauling the old, ineffective top-down approach to building sustained political power.
Brighter Future is working to create a robust leadership pipeline that empowers underrepresented groups to take on leadership roles in North Carolina’s civic and political ecosystem. We are committed to creating a sustainable leadership pipeline that is strategic, reflective, and prioritizes the needs and perspectives of the New American Majority.
Brighter Future’s strategy is to provide a comprehensive set of resources and support to emerging leaders, including but not limited to recruitment, training, mentorship, and networking opportunities. Brighter Future’s training programs are designed to equip emerging leaders with the skills and knowledge they need
to be effective in their roles, including organizing, fundraising, storytelling, communication, and leadership
development. Brighter Future also provides a robust mentorship program that connects emerging leaders with experienced leaders.
We will also provide our leaders with ongoing coaching, support, and feedback to help them grow and develop professionally.
