At this moment, our communities are facing mounting threats—from attacks on basic human rights and essential services, to efforts that undermine the civic institutions and organizations that stand in defense of justice. To address these challenges, over the past year, a set of 20 Southern California power-building organizations came together to create a new set of labor standards for organizer jobs. As part of that effort, last month, these leaders and several of their funders came together to discuss their progress and what it will take to shift the ecosystem to support widespread adoption of the standards.

We created a shareable graphic for organizers and those who support them as we move forward to rest and regroup. Click below to download and share on your social channels.

Erik Garcia currently works as the Organizing Director at Órale, an immigrant justice organization in Long Beach, CA. Erik and Órale’s Executive Director, Gaby Hernandez, have both worked with ADR as a part of the cohort to establish a set of labor standards for organizers in the Southern California region. We talked with Erik to hear more about his experience participating in this process and what he hopes it will change for the field:

“If we're able to communicate to funders and other stakeholders the importance of sustainability of the organizers—to say, yes, you're invested in the work and that's great, but it’s also about investing in the organizer—I'm really excited about that, because it's a different layer to our fundraising. We don't often say, hey, we really need to sustain our organizers because they've done X, Y and Z and like, that work has been able to be done because of this amazing person that we have on board. That's a different strategy.”

Alex Lalama is a community advocate and organizer currently serving as the Deputy Director of San Francisco Rising in California.