At Funders Together for Housing Justice, our work is guided by a deep belief in collective liberation. These values are not just aspirations—they are commitments that shape how we show up in community, how we engage with philanthropy, and how we move toward justice. Rooted in love, accountability, and radical imagination, our values help us practice what we preach and build the future we know is possible.
- A Pro-Black, Pro-Indigenous, and Pro-LGBTQ Stance: We strive to be and model for community what it looks like to be Pro-Black, Pro-Indigenous, and Pro-LGBTQ. We recognize that our liberation is tied up in one another’s and that we are not truly free until we are all free. We call out being pro-Black, pro-Indigenous, and pro-LGBTQ to affirm the full humanity of Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQ people. We acknowledge that equity is a starting point, but is not sufficient, for liberation.
- Unapologetic boldness in love and disruption: We are bold and unapologetic about our commitment to justice and liberation. We operate from a place of love and disruption by meeting people where they are and remaining committed to continuous movement toward more justice-oriented and liberatory practices.
- Principled struggle and nuance: We engage in principled struggle for the sake of building deeper unity. In principled struggle, attributed to organizer N’Tanya Lee, we are honest and direct while holding compassion, we each take responsibility for our own feelings and actions, and we seek deeper understanding while engaging in generative conflict. We recognize nuance in our work, holding multiple truths and embracing complexities.
- Imagination, curiosity, and abundance: We build and exercise our muscle for radical imagination and curiosity. We create spaciousness in our work to imagine what a more liberated world could be and accept that we will not have all the answers. We begin by asking, “How do we make this possible?”
- Solidarity and examination of power: We are accountable to people at the sharpest intersections of oppression (a phrase first introduced to us by Yanique Redwood). We act in solidarity by operating in ways that center their voices and agency. This necessitates an examination of power: philanthropy’s relationship to power, how we cede and build power, and how we disrupt power dynamics in solidarity with community.
- Community and community care: We create the conditions that allow people to recognize the fullness of their humanity and emotions. We offer grace to ourselves and to others, recognizing that we are imperfect and human, and take care of one another through community care.
- Joy: We find and practice joy in work that is hard. We understand that joy is the resistance to the oppression that we face, and that joy enables us to hope, practice radical imagination, and build community.
- Honoring of ancestors: We acknowledge that our work builds on a long legacy of people who laid the groundwork for us. We honor those who walk beside us physically and spiritually, including the many ancestors we don’t know the names of who toiled and sacrificed for a better world they didn’t get to see, and give credit for the intellectual, physical, and spiritual labor of others.
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