Sounds of Solidarity
Stories about spirituality, Advocacy, and the Fight for Justice.
Spirituality and Healing for Movement Sustainability
Written by Neha Rayamajhi
September 19, 2024
Two years ago, the philanthropy team at the Episcopal City Mission (ECM) convened a Wisdom Council composed of eight local community leaders to partake in an experiment. We hypothesized that liberation work requires attention to spiritual health, especially for those on the front-lines.
As a faith-based organization, this wasn't a new concept for us. However, expanding our understanding of spirituality beyond Christianity, and focusing on lineages of traditions harmed and threatened by colonization, was a new and brave step that I, as a non-Christian staff member, am immensely grateful for.
Since then, the experiment has evolved into an annual grant program named Finding Our Way Home (FOWH). It has supported 19 projects, self-determined by Burgess Grantees. We continue receiving overwhelming requests from movement workers who are drawing on spiritual practices from their ancestral memories and radical imagination. It is clear ECM alone cannot fill this void in Massachusetts, so collaborations to build the infrastructure and the culture have been the focus of our team's work this year.
FOWH's event on August 15th, in partnership with Soul of Movement, MA (SoM), was an outcome of that field-building effort. Held in Marsh Chapel of Boston University, the gathering brought practitioners, BIPOC organizers, Wisdom Council members, and funders- all of whom believe in the significance of this work. Language interpretation service, travel stipends, and other accessibility details made this four-hour retreat more welcoming to grantees who usually are absent from funder events.
Another highlight included the richness of conversations that arose not just during the large group discussions and break-out groups but also during food breaks and the chapel hallway long after the meeting had officially closed. This was also an opportunity for ECM grantees (BIPOC organizers) to meet SoM grantees (spiritual practitioners), and possibly collaborate on projects for their communities. Similarly, the funders had the chance to hear directly from our leaders on the front-lines, why “investing in healing projects is crucial.”
As we prepare to launch this year's application, we continue to shape this grant program by collaborating with our Wisdom Council, grantees, and others in the interaction of movement work and spirituality. We are excited to have been invited to present this work at the upcoming Social Justice Funders Network meeting.
Our goal is to encourage other funders to support grassroots organizers not just for their tangible labor but also for their work toward healthy individuals, communities, and culture. Our hope is to inspire everyone else along the way, to be curious about their own role in this work.