Class Action’s Voices of the Working Class, Working Poor and Poor series seeks to raise the visibility of those most impacted by inequality and create access to their perspectives and experiences. Creating a Solidarity Alternative: The Center for Cooperative Development and Solidarity (CCDS) Ann Philbin, Executive Director of Class Action, speaks with Luz Zambrano, Liliana Avendaño, […]
Class Action Blog
Damaging Dishonesty
I guess you could call me a liar. Back when I had fundraising responsibilities at several small nonprofit organizations, I lied to foundations all the time. I assumed, often correctly, that funders wanted to believe that their money would directly bring about specific program impacts, so I told them it would. That meant hiding some […]
Affordable Housing with Laura Kiesel
Laura Kiesel is a renter and advocate for affordable housing in Arlington, MA. In this video interview with Class Action’s Betsy Leondar-Wright, Laura talks about the reality of affordable housing and recent “articles,” also called bills or proposals, she’s brought forward to increase affordable housing in Arlington. Laura’s experience as a long-time renter provides invaluable insight for everyone across […]
Got Netflix and a Coffee? Classist and Clueless New York Times Readers Chime In
by Nicole Braun “How in the world can you have no savings? At one time in my life I made less than $20k a year and was still able to save 3 months of living expenses. True…the 4th month would’ve brought challenges but I was still able to save. People (especially the uneducated) live WAYYYY […]
The Nonprofit Inferiority Complex and Why We Need to Lose It Now
Here’s a thought exercise you can use to test yourself for the dreaded Nonprofit Inferiority Complex, the internalized idea that nonprofit work is inherently less valuable than other forms of wage labor. How do you feel about the following statements with respect to community-based nonprofits? 1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = maybe; […]
Are You Asking the Right Questions?
A crisis may not seem like the most convenient moment to take stock, but it can be an opportune one – if we take advantage of the opportunity. U.S. society will be profoundly different post-pandemic. What that new order will look like is up for grabs. Nonprofits are positioned to lead the way to a […]
To Fellow Owning Class Progressives: Time to Step Up!
Last week, I drove up to my local hospital to drop off some extra masks that we had bought a couple years ago during peak wildfire season. As I handed them to the hospital administrator, he said “Thank you so much. Would you like a picture of yourself handing these to me?” Seriously? This moment […]
College Amplifies Advantages & Disadvantages
Here’s some bad news for all of us who strive to get more working-class first-generation students into and through college: college is not an effective leveller. Class inequalities persist even among graduates of ‘good’ colleges. Expanding opportunities for higher education is ineffective if advantaged students graduate with even greater advantages, and if disadvantaged graduates still […]
COVID-19 and Class Inequalities
The national conversation about coronavirus highlights existing conversations about enduring class inequities in the United States. Elite colleges and universities, in line with the CDC’s preventive measures for institutions of higher education, have opted to move instruction online and reduce the numbers of students in their residential buildings. The decision has placed a tremendous burden […]
Tips for Developing a Values-Based Compensation Structure
TSNE MissionWorks published the 2017 Valuing Our Nonprofit Workforce compensation and benefits report which gathered data representing 171 positions from 342 organizations reporting on nearly 35,000 individual salaries. You’ll find the report a wealth of information to use in your review of your organization’s compensation practices. There is no single right way to develop compensation practices. […]
Five Human Resources Tips for Valuing Your Nonprofit Staff
We know one of the things that keeps nonprofit managers awake at night is concerns about personnel. In the social sector, employees are an organization’s greatest asset. Nonprofit leaders naturally want to get that critical piece of their work right. But this can be particularly tricky in smaller organizations that don’t have a designated human […]
Thoughts on Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope by Kristoff and WuDunn
An essay adapted from Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, the new book by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, appeared in the paper’s Sunday Review section on January 9th. Focusing on “deaths of despair” occurring in the Oregon county where Kristof has roots, the piece tries to square common tropes about how […]
Noticing Inequalities: An Owning Class Student’s Journey to Class Awareness
By Sophie Hatcher-Peters I grew up in North Carolina as a preacher’s kid. My maternal grandfather was a Presbyterian minister in the bible belt, and my mother is an ordained minister and religious studies professor. I was raised in a small, predominantly white Presbyterian church – I remember being a child, getting ready for church […]
Celebrating Survival: The Experience of Being Working Class During the Holidays
By Anastasia Lynge Anyone who knows me well knows that the two most difficult days of the year for me are holidays – specifically Thanksgiving and Christmas. I typically spend these days hiding away in bed, watching bad TV, and sleeping until I can rest assured that I’ve made it through another round of winter […]
Listening For Change: How to explore aspects of class identity in therapy
Anyone who walks into my office is immediately searching for or noticing indicators of social identity. As a Korean therapist, I’m often tempted to think race is being centered however, it is not always clear which of my identities clients will focus on when they attend therapy. I have also had to make sense of […]
Class Action Book Nook: The Privileged Poor
Anthony Jack’s book Privileged Poor offers unique personal insight into the challenges faced by low income, first-generation college students at the nation’s most elite colleges and universities. Although many colleges will pat themselves on the back for the mere presence of these students, what they fail the realize is how much further they need to go in […]
Crummy nonprofit jobs – and solutions
by Betsy Leondar-Wright Some of the worst pay I ever got was from progressive social justice organizations. No health benefits at one job; no raise for 4 years at another; once a salary so low I qualified for Food Stamps. In an irony of the nonprofit world, their external missions of equity and economic opportunity […]
Untold Stories: Bringing Class into the Classroom
By: Adj Marshal and Betsy Leondar-Wright Students often respond with confusion to questions about social class—not surprising given the common assumption that the US is a “classless society.” The fog surrounding class stratification makes it difficult to teach about economic inequality. Why is class so challenging to teach about? Compared with race or gender, class […]
Breaking New Ground in the UK
Training of activist trainers on class and classism. The Exploring Class weekend in Gloucestershire in West England, hosted by the radical nonviolence magazine Peace News, was the first training of activist trainers on class and classism that there’s ever been in Britain, so far as we know. About a week before Exploring Class took place […]
Glide Church Workshop in San Francisco
In July, Senior Trainer Shane Lloyd and Interim Executive Director Rachel Rybaczuk co-led an Exploring Class workshop for members of Glide Church in San Francisco. The training was in support of Bridging The Divide (BTD), a project bringing people from across the political spectrum into dialogue on a monthly basis. Bridging The Divide is a […]
