Happy Holidays from March On Foundation!
Since our inception in 2020, we’ve worked hard to provide a foundation (pun intended) for organizers across the country to grow their advocacy and make real systemic change. We make organizing easier through original storytelling and fiscal sponsorship opportunities.
In 2023, we continued to build our original storytelling program and added more options for fiscal sponsorship. We also continued our community relationships through March On Maryland, as a way of staying in touch with local politics.
Original Storytelling
We released our new educational series, Hidden Figures. As the name may imply, this database presents figures in history (both of the past and in the making) who have been hidden, repressed, suppressed, or erased from history written from a colonialist lens.
In 2024, we hope to share the stories of at least eight other hidden figures, including an enslaved trans woman who fought against sexual violence.
Our original storytelling project “this season” had its third installment early in the year. We featured a panel on disinformation and misinformation featuring Emma Leiken from Omidyar Network and Sneha Revanur from our fiscal project Encode Justice.
Next, our blog entered its second year of interviews, youth organizing, and contributors speaking on different social justice topics. It was also officially named: The Magpie!
Our goal with the blog is to create both a safe space where people know their dignity will be protected and respected, and a brave space where those in the right headspace can explore hard topics confronting our world today.
We launched TWO new series in 2023, (which, the editor notes, is our proudest blog achievement). The first is Unfinished Stories, where we speak to folks who lost loved ones too soon, who never got to finish their stories. The second series is called On the Safety of Storks, a comprehensive, easy-to-digest breakdown of the infamous Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
In 2024, we anticipate publishing at least two more stories of good, everyday people who never got to live their full lives.
Katherine Morris and Keith Warren – the first subjects of Unfinished Stories.
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March On Maryland
March On Maryland supported 18 organizations, most of them local to Annapolis and Anne Arundel County, MD. Support manifested in technical assistance, livestreaming, writing, organizing, and giving microgrants.
We supported numerous events, including the 60th Anniversary Celebration of the March On Washington with the Caucus of African American Leaders; and the 37th Annual Kunta Kinte Festival in Annapolis.
Due to budget cuts, March On Maryland will not be able to continue our microgrant program next year. However, we are pivoting towards more educational projects and a closer partnership with our friends at Connecting the Dots Anne Arundel County.
Fiscal Sponsorship
On the fiscal sponsorship front, we launched our new Model C program through our comrades at Future Incubator!
Fiscal sponsorship is a great way for nonprofits registered with the IRS to share that privilege with grassroots movements with less access to financial resources. Because of the nonprofit industrial complex (NPIC), grassroots organizations not registered with the IRS are often unfairly excluded from lucrative funding sources, even though they often have closer ties to their communities. Since we were just March On Maryland in 2017, fiscal sponsorship has been a crucial staple of our work.
There are many types of fiscal sponsorship, each type designed for different kinds of support from sponsor to sponsoree. This year, the Future Incubator team launched the Model C fiscal sponsorship option, where organizations with pre-approved grants can be independent, but still legally protected by the sponsor.
In 2024, we’re looking to pivot into scaling fiscal sponsorship as a mechanism for movement building across the country.
Happy New Year!
We hope you all have a very happy holiday surrounded by people you love. 2023 was rough, especially towards the end. 2024 might not be that much better, but we each have the choice to make it as good as we can.
May 2024 be a year of positive transformation for all of us; may it never give us more than we can handle; may it be easier for us to welcome change when its needed; may everyone get an opportunity to live their lives with dignity; and may we all learn to embrace empathy for one another.
Be prepared to come into 2024 fighting: organize, strategize, and VOTE. Our relative stability depends on it. We’ll see you in 2024!