Social movements, the authors argue, are a hidden underpinning of the American story. Using the tools of relationship-building, community mobilization, and symbolic protest, they have helped bring us civil rights, labor protections, and even a healthier environment, sparking people's aspirations, imaginations, and actions for a better nation.

Why then has funding of these movements been difficult to obtain and sustain? Some suggest that funders often want more immediate and measurable outcomes.  Moving a nation to live up to its promise is important but hard to quantify. And yet in recent years, there has been renewed philanthropic interest and openness to investing in social movements, community organizing and policy change, and an understanding that this will require a new level of patience and a new set of relationships with grantees.

This document seeks to provide a guidepost to both funders and the field by detailing what makes for a successful social movement, what capacities need to be developed, and what funding opportunities might exist.

The document itself comes from a different model of funder-grantee relationships. The research was initially commissioned by The California Endowment (TCE) as its leaders were thinking through the connection between place-based comprehensive change and state-level policy in the Golden State. Thinking that the connection between the two might be social movements and community organizing, TCE commissioned USC's Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) to do a series of interviews with leading organizers – and asked us to write something that would make sense to these activists as well as foundation leaders.

This report is the result of these interviews as well as a review of the burgeoning academic literature on the theme and our own experience in the field. The initial version was presented to a group of leading organizers as well as TCE staff in June of 2008 -- and it was upon their positive reception of the work and suggestion that we should it make more widely accessible that we endeavored to write this fuller review. 

The executive summary of the report can be found here. Hard copies are available upon request.

PERE is a research unit headed by Professor Manuel Pastor and situated within USC's Center for Sustainable Cities.  PERE conducts research and facilitates discussions on issues of environmental justice, regional inclusion and immigrant integration.  In general, we seek and support direct collaborations with community-based organizations in research and other activities, trying to forge a new model of how university and community can work together for the common good.  Other PERE publications are available here.