Stepping Down as ED: To the amazing people who make up this Global Community — Thank you.
Today after three and a half years of being a part of Women’s March Global — I’m announcing my resignation as Executive Director. It is very difficult to say farewell to the work of leading one of the most awe-inspiring communities I have ever been a part of. But, I am also incredibly excited to announce the next stage in our journey. As you know we have been working tirelessly over the past few months exploring paths forward for Women’s March Global as an organisation and as a 501c3 and so we are looking forward to moving our home and operations to be housed under The Social Change Agency (SCA) in London, UK and to have it be the new home for our global movement.
The past three and a half years with you, our beloved community, have been nothing but life changing for me. I am transitioning from ED to being an active member of the interim committee with the feelings of immense gratitude, reaffirmed commitment and the sometimes persistent feeling of deep exhaustion (something I know many of you share).
I am nothing but grateful to all of you for constantly reminding me that the work that we need to do as a global movement must always be to centre our global community at every single moment. It is why in this last year we made a declaration that as a movement and as an organisation we must be transparent in all of our interactions and processes, decision-making, financial, and otherwise. We must also be clear headed and frank about the challenges that we face as organisers.
I am thankful to all of you who continued to push this global organisation to always do better, to always show up, to repeatedly acknowledge that every single movement is built on the backs of black women and women of color and the historic advances they have made. For them, we hold an incredible responsibility to ensure that we are not reifying harmful white supremacist systems within the women’s rights and the movement building space. It is why as a global community, we have always listened to you to ensure that we push ourselves and each other to have open, honest, and empathetic conversations about white feminism, white supremacy, and the challenges of the women’s rights space. As part of the new interim committee I will continue to centre and ensure these values are primary in our thoughts and actions.
I am deeply grateful to every single person that I have come in contact with because of our work at Women’s March Global. From every local organiser I had a Zoom call with, to every person I’ve chatted with on WhatsApp — your tireless energy and your commitment to our shared collective liberation have sustained me, have made it possible for me, to continue this work.
Being a volunteer ED of Women’s March Global since July 2019 has not come without its challenges and personal cost. Wanting to put the majority of my efforts into our movement and fighting on the front lines, but having to focus on fundraising with limited capacity was beyond difficult. Please allow me to share a story with you. As I worked to try to secure Women’s March Global’s financial future, a colleague and long time advocate discussed what might help our situation. I will never forget what she told me: WMG needed, or it would be better if we hired, a white development specialist to help us with fundraising. As a Black Woman she understood and shared that white women carry more trust within the women’s rights space than women of colour do and funders would only see me and my brown skin. I have said many times in different venues that I have never felt the colour of my skin more in the women rights space than when in a conversation with a funder — whether it be a foundation or an individual donor.
My experience has shown my colleague’s thoughts to be true. The funding space is inherently built on white supremacy and funders are only just beginning the radical conversations needed to challenge and change these harmful structures and the way in which they reify and work within them. Meanwhile, grassroots organisations like Women’s March Global, and so many others, struggle to breathe full breaths as they fight on the front lines for their collective freedoms. It is not only the ‘fault’ of funders. This is just one of the ways that white supremacy stifles the work of grassroots leaders. But, this cannot continue. It exhausts, and crumbles, and crushes us, my other sisters of colour and black women, in this space. Yet this is the very reason why we need to exist, and not falter in our work.
I believe so much in the mission of this organisation, in building community across borders and time zones, in supporting, wherever possible, the women who are doing the work of collective liberation. Because of this, I am committed to staying on the interim committee and supporting this exciting next step while exploring my journey forward in this space of women’s human rights organising.
I am excited for this community. I am excited for this organisation, but most of all I continue to remain grateful to you for your work. Thank you for your solidarity and for your community.
With utmost love and see you on the streets,
Uma
