Movement INNOVATIONCOLLABORATIVE

A historic investment in transformative power

Over 500 of California’s movement leaders and community organizers are involved in a historic effort to transform California’s power-building sector, a necessary ingredient to creating a more inclusive, belonging, and equitable state.

These organizing leaders designed and co-created the Movement Innovation Collaborative (MIC), a first-of-its-scale effort to amplify and accelerate the field of power-building through a new intergenerational, organizer-led model. The seed funding of $85 million is the largest grant in the history of The California Endowment and the largest grant ever given in the state directed specifically for power-building in disadvantaged communities.

Power-building movements — especially those led by young people, immigrant and refugee communities, Black and Indigenous communities and communities of color — have historically lacked investment and have faced inequitable distribution of resources. This lack of investment has slowed the progress of our movements and created conditions that leave many organizers and leaders overworked and under-resourced.  From the growing unhoused population and health inequity to the climate crisis, tackling these issues requires a sophisticated system of coordination and mobilization – which community leaders expressed to us meant greater investment and infrastructure to succeed.

In the midst of a pandemic, nearly 40 multiracial and intergenerational leaders from a wide range of organizations, constituencies, issues, and regions in California formed a Design Committee to develop the vision, purpose, and structure of what was then called the i-Center. They reflected on questions like “How do we build the voice and leadership of young power-builders, and create a more robust, intergenerational, multiracial movement?” and “What does healing, restoration, and sustainability need to look like within our movement?”

The Committee then spent seven months gathering rigorous feedback and community input from diverse partners, organizations, and leaders across the state that uncovered California’s power-building strengths and weaknesses, needs, and priorities that this new initiative should address.

One youth focus group participant shared, “Making sure there are spaces that are purely led by youth for the youth [and also]… having youth actively engaged in naming what they want is important. Especially for making a space that’s trauma-informed, that is healing-centered, and culturally rooted.”

A queer and trans focus group participant shared, “It would be helpful to help organizations [connect to] a network of healers and people that do cultural work for various populations.”

A focus group member from the Bay Area shared, “Part of [what we need to be] able to do is to break out of the isolation and even competition between groups. Activities and/or strategies that build stronger lateral relationships between organizations would be a really important function. Building and strengthening that muscle to have more robust, and less competitive, relationships between movement people.”

Inspired by the collective input, the Design Committee worked on a more detailed action plan to launch a concept of cross-sector, cross-racial networks of power-building centers, which was eventually named the Movement Innovation Collaborative or MIC. Using core strategies including movement strategy and innovation, intergenerational leadership development, healing justice and sustainable work culture, and a network of virtual and physical organizing centers throughout the state, MIC has an ambitious vision for how to align and scale up movements to better meet community needs.

“Movement Innovation Collaborative seeks not to replace but evolve our current power-building efforts and is led by the voices of local communities. We want to help scale programs effectively and provide a space for cross-movement learning and strategy that results in more durable, more resilient, more powerful leaders and movement organizations rooted in healing and justice,” said Miya Yoshitani, the organization’s co-director.

Formally launched in May 2024, Movement Innovation Collaborative invites more organizations and organizers to engage with them as they roll out programs and events. TCE looks forward to the future of the Movement Innovation Collaborative and all the ways it will serve communities through physical and virtual spaces to achieve racial justice, health equity, and social transformation for California.

“Given the state of our nation – where democracy is under threat under the shroud of racial divisiveness – there is no job more vital to our future than that of community organizer,” said Dr. Robert K. Ross, the Foundation’s outgoing President and CEO, in an article published in the Chronicle of Philanthropy. “We must aggressively fund community and grassroots organizing, and be unafraid to center the matter of race.”

“Our hope is that in 10 years, California will have more and stronger grassroots base-building organizations, greater connection between underrepresented regions, and empowered leaders with the support they need to take bold risks, expand their reach, and build power,” Yoshitani said.