Technical Assistance & Progressive Organizations

Technical Assistance & Progressive Organizations for
Social Change in Communities of Color

A Report to the Saguaro Grantmaking Board of the Funding Exchange
1999 Funding Exchange / Luz Guerra
Editor's note: this is the original report based on interviews with

community activists of color whose organizations were recipients of
grants from the Saguaro Board, "intermediary" activist-trainers who
provided technical assistance to community organizations, and staff
members of foundations from the Funding Exchange network and other
progressive funders. Because the funding and training of nonprofit
activist organizations is inherently political, many readers have
found the report to be useful in discussions about the history and
future of funding what is now called the "nonprofit industrial
complex." We're currently working on a follow-up to this report
please let us know if you've found it useful to your work, and send us
copies of any review or references of the report to: TAPOC@laranaedit.com
Guerra ~ TA and Progressive Organizations for Social Change in Communities of Color
A Challenge for the Saguaro Board: Examining our Role

The Saguaro Fund is one of three Funding Exchange (FEX) activistadvised funds. It is one of the few funding bodies that specifically
funds organizing in communities of color and whose decision-making
members are all activists of color currently engaged in organizing in
their home communities. The Saguaro Fund Grantmaking Board seeks to
fund models of organizing which:
are grassroots;
emphasize leadership development;
actively involve rank and file through empowerment, mass

education and politicization;
prioritize networking/alliance building; and
work in coalitions/organizations doing multi-issue work that

makes connections across divisions.
I take the time here to remind us of these priorities, and of the
Saguaro Funds uniqueness, as we begin to reflect on our role as a
funding body. The purpose of this research project, about the
technical assistance needs of our grantees, is to provide us with
information that can serve to inform our activism as a funding body.
We are a unique body with few if any role models before us: We
are nominated to the board because of our individual track records in
our communities, but we frequently do not know each other, nor each
others culture, ways and norms, prior to joining together to make
funding decisions that can have critical importance to the work of
other activists of color around the United States and in Puerto Rico.
What we have in common is that we are activists who, by serving on the
Saguaro Board, have committed to support organizations that are
working for meaningful change in society by addressing the root causes
of poverty and discrimination.
As a Saguaro Board member from 1994 to 1997, I took part in many
conversations regarding our role and responsibilities, our concerns
for the state of the movements for progressive social change, and
our concerns about the lack of access our communities and
organizations of color have had to the resources money, skills
development and knowledge they need to carry out their work for
social change. Those conversations have led the Saguaro Board to enter
into two decision-making processes: one regarding whether and how to
implement multi-year funding, and the second regarding technical
assistance.
Ironically, as I have spent time asking other activists to define
their organizational needs and priorities and the challenges they face
in their work, I realized that, while Saguaro has discussed the needs
of others (our potential grantees) and of the movement, we had
rarely discussed our own needs as a progressive body; i.e., our own
needs for a self-identified project, for being conscious, intentional
actors in our common space of activism. This inquiry is an intentional

expansion of our role as activists from communities of color, moving
temporarily within a specific sphere of social change progressive
funding.
Many of the groups I interviewed talked about the difficulties
they encounter as grassroots activists having to assume roles and
responsibilities required by their nonprofit structure, their
expanding budgets and staff, and by their funders; roles and
responsibilities which they frequently had little knowledge of, let
alone received any training in as activists. One of the difficulties
they confront is in learning to distinguish between what is being
demanded of them by new circumstances and structures, and what they
and their constituencies want to become.
I believe similar difficulties confront the Saguaro Fund
Grantmaking Board. How do we balance the requirements of functioning
as an activist-advised fund of the Funding Exchange with our need
as a unique gathering of activists of color to define our own
vision and processes for activism? How do we remove ourselves from the
stress and tension we all operate under as activists with
responsibilities to our home communities, as people living/working
under attack, and as individuals with our own hopes and dreams to
be able to think critically about our short-term role on the Saguaro
Board, a role that can have a long-term affect on our grassroots
movements?
The decision-making process of determining if Saguaro should play
some pro-active role in technical assistance funding requires that we
do both. First, we must look at our function as one of FEXs activistadvised boards, balancing that with our need to identify a common
vision about our activism. Second, we must leave aside for a moment
the many other demands upon us and engage with each other in
critically examining the opportunity before us, an opportunity to
intentionally assume a collective, short-term role that will have a
long-term affect on our grassroots movements. It is my intention, my
wish, that this document will assist you, and us, in this important
movement building project.
1. Introduction
This document began as a discussion among the members of the
Saguaro Grantmaking Board during 1995-1997, and was informed by an indepth discussion with the OutFund Grantmaking Board at a joint meeting
held in Oregon in the spring of 1996. The ongoing Saguaro discussion
centered around the viability of the groups and projects we were
funding: their ability to survive and grow as organizations capable of
contributing to the greater community and the movements for social
change in the United States. Thus, we were concerned with

organizational stability, both fiscal and structural.
We were also concerned with the political and movement-building
capacity of groups. We are funding social change: Did our present and
potential grantees have the capacity to be effective politically and
to grow and respond to the increasingly conservative political trends
around the country? Did they have access to the tools and information
they might need to develop a critical analysis of their niche in the
broader social justice movements?
Part of our concern came from the types of proposals we were
seeing, which reflected the inexperience of some of our organizations
with proposal writing, development of budgets, and project or
organizational planning. Additionally, we were concerned that too many
potential Saguaro grantees were out of the loop and were unaware of
the Funding Exchange and other funding sources. Finally, we wanted to
know if our grantees had access to the types of technical assistance
training that could help them with their capacity building and
organizational and political development.
It was this last concern that the Saguaro Board decided to focus
on, as it related to us as a small funding body. What were the
technical assistance needs of our grantees and applicant pool, and
what role might the Saguaro Board (and by extension other progressive
funders) play in helping organizations meet their technical assistance
needs?
Method
Over a six-month period I conducted interviews with activists
from past and current Saguaro grantee organizations (see p. ), with
progressive technical assistance providers (see Appendix 2), and with
progressive funders (see Appendix 4). These interviews were openended, and in most cases the interview questions stimulated longer
conversations (see Appendix 1 for a list of questions asked).
Interviews conducted in person were tape recorded; those conducted
over the phone were typed into a computer, as close to verbatim as
possible. In addition to these interviews this report also benefited
from extensive conversations on the subject of technical assistance
with various social change activists (see Appendix 3).
It was not the intention of this research to produce a formal
statistical study; rather it was to get a sense of the state of the
movements for social change regarding activists perceived needs for
technical assistance and training. While I provided interviewees with
Saguaros working definition of technical assistance (outlined in the
next section), categories of technical assistance needs listed in this
report were taken directly from the interviews, with no attempt to
match an activists description of a need with a formal predefined
category.
TA and Progressive Organizations for Social Change in Communities of Color
Overview
Chapter Two draws on the interviews with Saguaro grantees,
describing their constituencies and their self-identified needs for
technical assistance. Chapter Three is a narrative description of the
major areas of concern progressive funders and technical assistance
providers had regarding the provision of technical assistance.
In addition to interviews, I reviewed a range of articles and
reports related to technical assistance and/or progressive funding.
Those readings I found critical to the shaping of my conclusions are
listed under Background Readings.
An unexpected result of this research was my own engagement with
the topic, as a Saguaro Board alumnus, as an activist, and as a
progressive educator and provider of technical assistance. My response
to the stories I heard and the concerns they raised for me about the
politics of technical assistance for progressive organizations are
outlined in Chapter Four.
Finally, my conclusions regarding technical assistance and
progressive organizations for social change in communities of color,
including specific recommendations to the Saguaro Board, are outlined
in Chapter Five.
Defining Technical Assistance

What is technical assistance (TA)? As Saguaro got deeper into
this discussion, we found that we did not necessarily share a common
understanding of the term technical assistance (TA). I surveyed the
standing members of the Saguaro Board, as well as a sampling of
longtime activists and people of color involved in progressive
funding, for a sense of what was meant when they used this term. Most
frequently it was understood to refer to the types of
assistance/training that help an organization strengthen and develop
as a nonprofit entity: board development, obtaining and fulfilling the
requirements of 501(c)(3) status, and fundraising skills. For many,
however, the term technical assistance tended to encompass more than
just nonprofit management skills.
Among the activists engaged in the Native rights and
environmental justice movements, there was strong concern expressed
that technical assistance include the specific types of technical
and legal skills development activists need to carry forward their
work: how to test water and soil for contamination, how to read and
understand technical manuals on the chemical make-up of various
pollutants, and how to carry out the legal research and activism in
the courts that is required in battles with corporate polluters or in
land claim struggles. Urban community activists also expressed a need
to include legal skills and practical research skills in our
definition of technical assistance. Finally, many stressed the need to
focus on political education as a legitimate form of technical

assistance.
Working Definition of TA for This Inquiry

Based on my discussions with others, the expanded definition of
technical assistance that I have utilized for the purposes of this
inquiry includes three distinct but overlapping areas:
1. assistance in the business of running an activist organization, such
as board and staff development, fundraising, fiscal management,
managing a progressive nonprofit and organizational strategic
planning;
2. assistance in gaining the skills needed for the day-to-day
realization of the work of our progressive organizations, including
but not limited to basic organizing skills, legal and technical
research skills, computer and software training and Internet
activism, and scientific research skills such as those employed in
the environmental justice movement, and
3. assistance in movement building for the long haul, developing
skills in critical political/social/economic analysis, strategic
movement building, working in coalitions, and skills to carry
forward our anti-oppression work on racism, internalized oppression,
sexism, classism, homophobia, etc.
2. Saguaro Grantees and Technical Assistance

Between November 1997 and March 1998, I spoke with 26 activists
from organizations funded by the Saguaro Board, representing
approximately one third of the groups Saguaro funded between 1993 and
1997 (see Chart 1) and reflecting a diversity of ethnicities and
geographic regions.
Among the groups I spoke to were organizations led by Native
activists, by Asians and Asian-Americans, African- Americans, Latinos
and immigrants from Latin America, and organizations that were mixedconstituency, either African-American and Latino, or African-American
and White. Chart 2 shows the racial and ethnic constituencies served
by each of the organizations included in this report.
There was a fair representation of both rural and urban groups,
as well as groups whose constituency is majority women and/or youth.
While many of the groups I spoke with have immigrant constituencies,
their focus tended to be labor organizing, not immigration reform nor
immigrant rights.
The organizations Saguaro funded ranged in age from new
organizations only one to two years old, to organizations that have
been in existence 10 or more years. The average organizational age was
about five years.
Organizational budgets, for the most part, fell between $100,000
and $200,000. Organizations with budgets
over $200,000 tended to have some capital expense such as owning a
building, or served a far-ranging, rural area
Chart 1. Saguaro Grant Recipients Interviewed

Organization, date and amount funded
Activist interviewed
Action for Community Empowerment (ACE)

1995 $9,400
Jacqueline Nia Mason

ACE
126 East 119th Street
New York, NY 10026
ALLGO (Austin Latina/Latino Lesbian and Gay

Organization)
1995 $9,400
Jesse Johnson, ED
ALLGO
1715 E 6th, Suite 112
Austin, TX 78702
Asians & Pacific Islanders for Reproductive

Health (APIRH)
1994 $5,000
Yin Ling Leung

Asians & Pacific Islanders for
Reproductive Health
310 Eighth St - Ste 100
Oakland, CA 94607
Audre Lorde Project (ALP)

1995
$10,000
Joo Hyun Kang

85 So. Oxford St.
1997
5,000
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Bay Area Policewatch Project (BAPP)

1997
$8,000
Van Jones
Bay Area Policewatch Project
301 Mission #400
San Francisco, CA 94106
Central Latino Cuzcatln (CLC)

1997 $10,000
Luis Flores, Gladys Ciprin

Centro Latino Cuzcatln
1300 S. Van Ness #204
San Francisco, CA 94110
Centro Independiente de Trabajadores Agrcolas

(CITA)
1995
$10,000
1996
$10,000
Ron Garca
CITA
P.O. Box 78
Florida, NY 10921
Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence (CAAAV)

1997
$10,000
Jane Bai ED
CAAAV
191 East 3rd Street
New York, NY 10009
Cooperative Economics for Women (CEW)

1994
$12,000
1995
$11,800
1996
$10,000
Rebecca Johnson
CEW
42 Seaverns Avenue
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Dine CARE
1993 $18,000
Lori Goodman **
PO Box 121
Tsaile, AZ 86556
Fuerza Unida (FU)

1996 $10,000
Viola Casares / Petra Mata

Fuerza Unida
710 New Laredo Highway
San Antonio, TX 78211
HUD Tenants Coalition of Newark

1997
$5,000
Nancy Zak
HUD Tenants Coalition
Newark, New Jersey
Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN)

1996 $15,000
Tom Goldtooth, IEN

PO Box 485
Bemidji, MN 56601
(discussion, no formal interview)
Indigenous Womens Network (IWN)

1996 $10,000
Lori Pourier
IWN
PO Box 2967
Rapid City, SD 57709-2967
Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates (KIWA)

1993 $10,000
Roy Hong
KIWA
2420 West Third St, 2nd Fl.
Los Angeles, CA 90057
La Familia
1997
$2,500
Angel Fabin
804 Bell St #A
East Palo Alto, CA 94303
10
Latino Workers Center (LWC)

1997 $10,000
Mnica Santana
Latino Workers Center
P.O. Box 20329
New York, NY 10009
New Mexico Alliance (NMA)

1993
$18,000
Reyna Luz Jurez **

New Mexico Alliance
930 20th St NW
Albuquerque, NM 87104
Oregon Human Rights Coalition

1994
$7,500
(OHRC)
Sylvia Mitchell
Oregon Human Rights Coalition
2710 NE 14th St
Portland, OR 97212
People Organized in Defense of the Earth and

Her Resources (PODER)
1995 $10,000
1996 $11,600
Susanna Almanza
PODER
55 N IH-35 #205B
Austin, TX 78702
Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN)

1996
$15,000
1997
$10,000
Larry Kleinman
PCUN
300 Young Street
Woodburn, OR 97071
Project South: Institute for the Elimination of

Poverty
1996
$10,000
Jerome Scott
Project South
9 Gammon Ave SW
Atlanta, GA 30315
RAPPS
1995
Vernon Stokay, RAPPS

Little Rock, AR
(no interview inclusion based on
prior discussion on TA needs)
$5,000
Sawmill Advisory Council (SAC)

1994 $18,000
Debra OMalley
Sawmill Advisory Council ***
930 20th Street, NW
Albuquerque, NM 87104
Shiwi Messenger
1997 3,000
Valerie Bellson & Nat Stone

The Shiwi Messenger
Zuni, NM
****
Southeast Regional Economic Justice Network

(REJN)
1995 $6,400
Leah Wise, ED # **
REJN
PO Box 240
Durham, NC 27702-0240
Workers Organizing Committee

1996
$10,000
Jenny Levison
Workers Organizing Committee ***
P.O. Box 12292
Portland, OR 97212
(WOC)
** Indicates individuals that have served on the Saguaro Grantmaking Board.
11
*** Indicates organizations that have had a staff or board member serve on the Saguaro
Grantmaking Board.
**** The Shiwi Messenger was not a Saguaro grantee, but a grantee of the Native American
Concerns Fund.
# Indicates individuals that served on General Fund Board, the predecessor to the Saguaro
Fund.
Indicates individuals that have served on the Funding Exchange Board.
12
Chart 2. Constituencies Served by Saguaro Fund Grantees 19931997

People
of Color
NativeAmerican
White
AfricanAmerican
ACE
ALLGO
AsianAmerican/Pa
cific Islander
Latina/o
APIRH
ALP
BAPP
CLC
CAAV
DineCARE
FU
IEN
La Familia
LWC
OHRC
OPMT
PCUN
SAC
Shiwi
SOC
WOC
NMA
REJN
KIWA
RAPPS
IWN
ProjSouth
HUD TCN
PODER
CITA
CEW
includes populations born in the U.S.

includes populations born outside of the U.S.
13
Arab
requiring a lot of travel or transportation of members. Most of the

groups averaged between three and four full-time staff, the majority
of whom were people of color serving people of color constituencies.
Some groups managed with only one full-time staff member, who often
received less than a full-time salary. Other groups had up to eight
full-time staff positions. Those organizations with more paid staff
tended to be membership led, organizing immigrant workers both rural
and urban. Other groups that were able to pay more staff than the
typical Saguaro grantee were those receiving some federal funding to
do HIV/AIDS work, or another form of health outreach; i.e., groups
with some service component functioning alongside their political
outreach and education.
From the interviews with grantees, as well as from conversations
with an extended group of activists, it would appear that there is
significant organizing being done in communities of color by groups
whose staff are underpaid or who depend a great deal on volunteer
labor. People are making this financial sacrifice because they have
to in order to keep their organizations going. However, almost all I
spoke with in this situation recognize that they cannot maintain their
organization for the long haul without a living wage.
The organizations Saguaro has funded represent and/or serve
marginalized communities: communities of people who are lowincome or
working poor, a majority of whom have had limited formal education.
Perhaps a quarter of the groups serve communities whose first language
is other than English (Navajo, Korean, Spanish, etc). The paid staff,
or the staff/board members in leadership, tend to be people who have
had a higher degree of formal education and who are fluent in English
or English-dominant. Many, but by no means all, of Saguaro grantee
organizations staff originally come from their constituent
communities.
Self-Identified Needs for Technical Assistance

Every group I spoke with had an easily accessible mental list of
TA needs they are actively working on, or would be working on if they
had sufficient staff, time and money. The TA needs identified fell
fairly evenly into the three general categories outlined by Saguaro:
organizational development, technical skills development, and movement
building for the longhaul. See Chart 3 for a breakdown of selfidentified TA needs.
A majority of the Saguaro grantees said they needed skills
development in all areas of financial management, including in
accounting, use of accounting software, financial planning, and
development of budgets. A third of the groups I spoke with stressed
the need for training in fundraising skills, and particularly on how
to broaden their organizational donor base and how to plug-in to the
funding world.
14
A majority of the groups interviewed identified movement building

skills as a critical need for themselves and/or for their
constituents. Many people were emphatic about needing to develop
skills in addressing internalized oppression around race and class,
and in bridging cultural differences among different groups of color
as well as between people of color and white allies.
15
Chart 3. Self-Identified Needs Saguaro Grantees

Specific TA Need Identified by Interviewees
Related additional needs identified by interviewees
Number of
Organizations
Identifying Need
Organizational Development
Personnel
Administrative systems
Filing systems
Program evaluation
Staff development
9
5
4
2
2
4
Board Development
Fiscal responsibilities
Legal responsibilities
5
3
3
Fiscal Management
Accounting
Accounting software
Budget development
Budget analysis
8
4
5
1
1
Fundraising
Access to foundations and funders
Donor base development
Grassroots
Proposal writing
13
5
3
2
2
Development of Alternative Organizational Structures
Strategic Planning for Organizations
Computers
Computer
Software
Internet
Internet
14
8
7
6
4
purchases
training
activism
research
Environmental
(Water, air, and soil monitoring and testing)

Legal
16
Legislative monitoring
Legal research (land titles, etc.)
2
2
Meeting Facilitation
Nonprofit Management
Movement Building for the Long Haul

Leadership development w/in movement building
Organizational development w/in movement building
17
5
6
Developing a Critical Analysis
12
Economic Literacy
Popular Education Skills
Deveopment of Youth Leadership
Self-identification of TA needs
Basic Organizer Training
Anti-Oppression Work
Racism
Classism
Gender & sexism
Homophobia
12
4
3
5
3
Addressing Internalized Oppression
Developing a Gendered Analysis
Sustaining ourselves for the long haul (Prevent burn-out)
Networking
Mentorship
17
18
3. The Provision of Technical Assistance

Progressive Funders and TA
During the course of this research I interviewed representatives
of 23 foundations (see Appendix 4), 14 of which are Funding Exchange
members. Of the non-FEX members, at least six are considered by
grantees to be progressive funders; most have a history of funding
groups with a left-of-center mission. One of the funders focuses
specifically on Native American projects, another on Hispanic
organizations. At least four of the non-FEX funders have a TA project
or component in their work, and my discussions with their
representatives are reflected in the general discussion about TA
providers, as well as in the conclusions of this report.
The funders interviewed use a variety of strategies to respond to
the TA needs of their grantee pool. Most common are the awarding of
small grants for contracting a TA provider or attending a conference
or workshop, and offering TA workshops and/or limited TA consulting
themselves. Some funders make smaller TA grants available to
recipients of general support grants in a given year, others allow
grantees to designate part of their general support grants to TA if
that is an organizational priority.
The smaller progressive funds are challenged by TA in the same
way they are challenged by their funding mission: There is too much
need, and far too few resources. Many small funders I spoke with are
concerned that for them, providing TA or TA funding may ultimately
diminish their effectiveness if they try and take on more than they
are able.
The smaller funders dont fund very many TA provider, or
intermediary organizations. (Some Saguaro grantees, however, do
provide TA for sister organizations and/or for their constituencies:
for example Project South, HUD Tenants, Indigenous Womens Network,
Sawmill Advisory Council, and the Korean Immigrant Workers
Advocates).
In general, the progressive funders I spoke with are not
satisfied with training resources available. Most would agree that
there are not enough resources, and certainly not sufficient numbers
of TA providers with an approach that is appropriate for small,
progressive organizations. Funders interviewed noted that there are
even fewer TA providers that are able to meet the culturally specific
needs of some of our organizations of color.
Although some funds try to respond to the need for a more
progressive approach to fundraising and organizational development
training, they are clear that their efforts only touch a small number
of needy organizations. Several funders pointed out that they struggle
19
to remain true to their own mission: funding progressive social

change, not providing training.
Most of the FEX member funds support some kind of TA, whether
through small grants to attend trainings or hire trainers, or by
hosting training events themselves.
They are also conscious of the
delicate balance funders wield power just by being funders and we
can have undue and inappropriate influence on the groups we fund.
Several FEX member fund representatives, however, felt that we ought
to be honest about the power that we do have, and that we ought to
make conscious decisions about using that power to increase the
viability and capacity of the progressive organizations we fund and
the progressive movement we serve. It was noted that ignoring our
power, and the position we occupy, is itself a political decision.
Many of the FEX member funds, and other small progressive funds,
give small grants ($500 - $1,000) toward technical assistance for
their grantees. Others do some combination of small TA grants and
providing their own TA gatherings of one to five days.
Progressive TA Providers
If TA leads to ossified organizations that are efficient but are
not about changing power structures, not doing good and new
organizing, then we are missing the mark. . . . We just have to
set back and take a real hard look and ask if what we are doing
is really advancing the social justice movement or if we have
become bureaucratic ourselves.
June Rostan
It is time we had a bigger picture, longer term view for the kind
of movement building that needs to happen and how we all play a
role in that. Organizations, TA providers, and funders, how can
we be more strategic then we already are?
Deepak Pateriya
Between November 1997 and March 1998 I spoke with 20 progressive
technical assistance providers many of whom are also activists. A
majority of these are people of color: one is Asian American, five
Latina/o, four are Native American, four are African American, and six
are European American. They range in age from 30 to 50 years old, and
13 of them are women.
Among the 20 TA providers, seven people represented nonprofit
technical assistance organizations located in California (4),
Chicago (1), Tennessee (1), and Portland (1) and of these, three
serve regional constituencies and four serve national and, on
occasion, international constituencies.
Five of the TA providers work as independent consultants;
however, they all frequently work for one of the regional or national
progressive TA provider agencies (including the Peace Development Fund
and the Center for Third World Organizing).
20
Six of the TA providers, at the time of our interview, worked for

other national progressive organizations that have a focus that
includes a TA component and/or who have a dedicated TA program to
serve their constituents and sister organizations (including
Greenpeace, National Latina/o Lesbian and Gay Organization (LLEGO),
and the Institute for Global Communications).
Two of the providers concentrate their work in the South, one in
the Northwest (Seattle & Portland), and two in smaller regions of the
Southwest. Only two of the providers have a majority rural focus area;
three focus almost exclusively in Native communities; one focuses on
Latina/o communities; and three focus on environmental justice
organizations.
Four of these TA providers work in organizations that have at one
time been funded by the Saguaro Board, and at least eight have
provided direct TA services for Saguaro Board grantees.
The TA providers I interviewed have many skills, and the areas
they offer training in are broad: organizational development (10);
strategic planning (6); technical skills in the areas of computers,
housing law, HIV/AIDS, environmental research, and economic planning
and development (6); community organizing (6); antioppression/dismantling racism (6); leadership development (6);
fundraising (8); campaign design and organizing (3); long-range
strategic planning (4); movement building (3); political strategy and
analysis (2); economic literacy (2); economic development (1); antiviolence (1); youth development (1). Four people said their approach
has been informed by the popular education methodology of Paulo
Freire; one provides technical assistance in popular education
practice. Only three see their organizational development work as
being specifically influenced by and related to movement building.
All of these TA providers except one self-identify as
progressives. None of them have less than five years of activist
experience, at least 14 have over 10 years movement experience, and at
least six have been activists for over 20 years.
All of our TA providers clearly believe that an organizations
fiscal survival and structural sustainability are vitally
interrelated, and that TA in the area of organizational development is
not by itself enough to maintain an organization that is financially
weak. All of our TA providers identified training in the area of
fundraising as a crucial need of the organizations they are working
with; for those working in the poorest and most isolated rural and/or
urban communities, this training is much harder to find. Several
providers stressed that groups need assistance in developing a diverse
funding base, in raising money from their constituency, and in gaining
access to the funding world.
Related to the need for fundraising assistance is the need for
more funding, period. Many of the TA providers pointed out the
21
contradiction in trying to provide training in fiscal management or

board development if the organization cannot pay its staff, or is
constantly hustling to keep its doors open. In interview after
interview, TA providers urged funders to make longer-term commitments
of larger amounts of money to groups, even if that meant funding fewer
groups.
Fiscal management and setting up good bookkeeping systems were
also stressed in the interviews, as was the mechanics of developing an
organizations structure. This assistance is needed sooner in an
organizations life, not once it is in crisis, according to the
interviewees.
Many groups experience waves of crises because they are trying to
do big stuff with little resources with people who dont have a
lot of experience. . . groups need help to get simple structures
in place that people can hang on to in times of crisis. It is
important to find ways that people can get support for leading in
an atmosphere of crisis. We see a high burnout rate, which does
damage to more than just the ones who visibly burnout it
discourages everyone else. A lot of our experience has been quite
frustrating. Its like trying to do TA when a train is
approaching at 500 miles at hour. It makes it very difficult.
Kay Sohl
Toward Survival
Four main areas of concern regarding the survival of our
progressive organizations of color emerged from the discussions with
TA providers. One is the health physical, emotional and spiritual
of the activists working in these organizations. TA providers noted
that activists are overworked, underpaid and highly stressed, all of
which has a negative effect on their health in general. The second
area of concern is the lack of a strategic, critical analysis about
their work, and where their organizations fit in the bigger picture of
movement building. The third area of survival TA providers are
concerned about is financial sustainability. Most organizations
struggle with fiscal stability; most have no plan for economic
sustainability beyond continued dependence upon foundation funding.
Finally, TA providers are concerned about the leadership of our
organizations: about the failure of our progressive organizations of
color to bring up new leadership, about the current lack of direction
by existing leadership, and about the general lack of leaders for
movement building.
There is another issue critical to the survival of our
communities and organizations and relevant to TA provision. As
communities struggling against over 500 years of oppression we are
still suffering in ways we dont know how to name. It is difficult for
22
people who are traumatized to form healthy, lasting relationships, and

this applies as much to relationships among members of our progressive
organizations as to familial relationships. As Ingrid Washinawatak of
the Fund of the Four Directions pointed out, a group may think the
problem they are having is related to organizational development,
and then
we fall into the trap of thinking that everything will be fine
with one or two trainings. We get used to the Band-aids but then
the Band-aids fall off. . . our folks are in such trauma that we
cant articulate what we need.
Many of the activists interviewed echoed Ingrids concern. Reyna
Luz Jurez, an activist with the New Mexico Alliance and former
Saguaro Board member, thought that this aspect of our healing is where
we need to focus most of our attention. It is, she said, what is
keeping our groups from moving forward. We cant even benefit from
the fundraising trainings we do get, because the old wounds keep us
fighting each other and ourselves.
Leah Wise, of the Regional Economic Justice Network, calls it the
spiritual aspect of our work. A challenge to both activists and
trainers is incorporating the spiritual aspect into our organizational
work:
People come to our meetings who value the personal healing and
spiritual values work we have done, but they dont know how to
raise that within their own organizations. What makes us so
apprehensive? Part of the answer has to do with community
organizing technology, where there has been no place for
spirituality. Everything is about power, it is about
institutions. A big part of our work is how to translate the
spiritual work in different settings.
Two Spheres of Work

As I listened to the different Saguaro grantees repeatedly
describe the same needs, I tried to conceive of them in categories
that would be useful to our discussion. I began to distinguish two
spheres of assessment for our organizations work. One sphere has to
do with developing organizational capacity, and building and
maintaining institutions. These are skills that are typically
considered under the rubric of organizational development, and
include how to run an activist nonprofit organization, how to
structure and work with that organizations leadership, how to ensure
that staff and volunteers have the skills needed for their day-to-day
work both internal to the organization and in their program work
and how to finance our activist work and sustain our organizations.
23
The second sphere of work extends outside of our organizations to

the broader movements for social change; rather than institutional
capacity, it is concerned with movement building for the long haul.
This sphere includes how we gain the skills we need to maintain
ourselves and our communities beyond our organization, how to
collectively plan and work for social change, and how to build massbased movements to sustain our vision. Chart 4 illustrates these two
interconnected spheres.
Sphere One: TA and Organizational Development

Funders, TA providers and activists alike were emphatic about the
organizational development needs of small progressive organizations. A
majority of organizations need ongoing training and support in every
area of sphere one, and this was the area that funders were most
likely to identify as a priority for the groups they are funding. TA
providers and funders all saw a critical need for training in the
structural aspects of organizational development: nonprofit
management, board development, and fiscal planning and fundraising.
Most of the TA providers interviewed provide some form of
organizational development TA. Grantees, however, have several
problems with obtaining this TA: 1) they often dont know when they
need it; 2) they dont know where to find a TA provider match; 3) they
dont have funds to engage in a TA process; and 4) they feel they
cannot dedicate staff and/or volunteer time to work that is not
essential (i.e. program work). Only a few people were able to
articulate that TA in this sphere is frequently presented in a
framework that is politically, socially or culturally incongruous with
their organization.
Native activists, funders and TA providers asserted that
organizational development TA for many Native communities was not only
incongruous with their political, social and cultural reality, it was
also too far out of the reach of much of their constituency. People
who worked with Native organizations were concerned that their
constituencies were too out of the loop to know about funding
sources, and when they did gain entry they were challenged by not
having access to the language of funders, and how to sell their
programs. The concerns articulated about meeting the TA needs for
Native organizations, I believe, also have some relevance for other
organizations of color that are isolated geographically,
linguistically or culturally.
24
25
HAVE THE
Luz Guerra 1998
OF
bud get planning & design;

long - range strategic
pla nning; fiscal
management; accounting;
fundraising
OUR ORGANIZATIONS
SUSTAINABILITY
HOW TO FINANCE OUR ACTIVIST

WORK AND ENSURE THE ECONOMIC
Fiscal Planning
& Fundraising
HOW TO PLAN AND CARRY OUT ACTIVISM

program & campaign planning, design &
impleme ntatio n; community organizing; organizer
training; policy analysis, education & mobilizatio n;
legislative work
Program Development
technical research ;
comm unication & decision making; leadership skills
(supervision, team -building,
etc); crisis management;
preventing burn -out
office skills; media skills,
TO DO THEIR WORK
ORGANIZ A TIONAL SKILLS THEY NEED
VOLUNTEERS
HOW TO ENSURE ACTIVIST S TAFF &
Staff & Vo lunteer

Development
HOW TO RUN A NONPROFIT BOARD OF DIRECTORS

legal & fiscal responsiblity; decision
- making & facilitation; long
range strategic planning; supervisio n; public co mmunication
Board Development
H OW TO R UN AN ACTIVIST
N ONPROFIT O RGANIZATION
bookkeeping & accounting; personnel
management; filing, computer and
co mmunication systems
N onProfit Management
Organizational Development
Analysis
Popular Education
Methodologies
Education
Planning
Chart 4.
Development
working collaboratively to
mob ilize communities for
political, economic & social
change
Political Organizing/
Mobilization
Mass
building & maintaining sustainable communities
Economic
social change; planning for the

cha llenges ahead
Strategic
gen eration of leaders; how to nurture

& support this generation of leaders
L o n g-term
envisioning our movements for
Development
how to nurture & support the next
Leadership
Incorporating a critical analysis of our history & the current political

context into the other aspects of o
ur movement building work
Political
healing internalized oppression individually & collectively; transforming

structures of social oppression i
n our institutions & communities
Work
changing the way we listen,

learn, teach & organize
A n t -i Oppression
developing an economic/social/
political/cultural analysis into all
aspects of our work
Critical
Seeking visions, articulating

missions, developing plans for
our collective activism to bear
Movement -Building for the Long Haul
SPHERES OF CHANGE
Sphere Two: TA and Movement Building for the Long Haul

We and our constituency need long-term strategic thinking about
anything at all. I am frustrated with the lack of ability to
think beyond the money to make next payroll. We need to develop
strategic thinking about moving a progressive agenda forward,
people dont feel comfortable thinking about that. . . people in
their 20s who are just joining our organizations get
disillusioned when they realize that there is not a plan, not a
strategy. Van Jones
A majority of grantees expressed a desire for TA in this second
sphere, but very few people interviewed thought such TA existed.
Movement building was identified as a gap that needed to be filled,
not just in terms of the individual work of grantee organizations, but
in terms of the broader communities of progressive organizations.
Quite a number of activists expressed frustration that the
organizational development training they had experienced was divorced
from movement building.
Most activists interviewed took it for granted that they and
their peers needed to continue to deal with racism, classism,
homophobia and other social oppressions in their organizations as well
as in their communities. Many expressed a need for new tools, and new
ways of incorporating anti-oppression work into the daily life of
their organizations. How to address class differences was a common
concern.
Quite a number of people stated that their work couldnt progress
until they were able to address, most commonly, race and class
differences among their staff, membership and/or working coalitions.
At the same time I heard a few activists despair that they didnt see
the means to make that happen any time soon. Those who expressed
confidence that their group was meeting the challenges of taking on
racism and classism were also clear that it was a long-term project;
these activists were concerned that the type of TA support they needed
for such long-term work was harder to sell to funders.
Several people wanted to see collective thinking on how to couch
their activism, and their organizational development work, within the
broader context of movement building. They also wanted to see new
styles and approaches to thinking about taking on this work.
Repeatedly, the activists who spoke with me were frustrated by
organizations that seem to work without an awareness of the bigger
picture. In our conversations, they described movement building as
going beyond responding to crises to developing a longer-term plan of
action, grounded in an analysis of our political reality. The skills
needed to do this movement building include:
how to develop a critical analysis
26
how to develop plans of action based on this analysis
how to work collectively with other organizations and/or communities

to carry out these plans
how to teach the next generation of leaders these same skills

Progressive funders and TA providers mirrored this concern. To
what extent, asked former Saguaro Board member Mitty Owens, does our
progressive funding result in a stronger movement? In conversations
with other Saguaro Board members Mitty was emphatic about Saguaro
looking at this sphere of TA, and how progressive funders can play a
role in moving forward the political education of grassroots
organizations of color.
Political education consists of the information and the skills or
tools we need to address, challenge and change our political reality.
It is the intellectual, spiritual and emotional food of our
progressive movement for social change. What political education looks
like depends on the needs of a particular community or organization,
and on the conditions under which we are able to access it.
When the Saguaro Board meets with community activists to learn
about their history, work and strategies, we are engaging in political
education. The Audre Lorde Project (Saguaro grantee 1995, 1997) tries
to include 45 minutes of political education every other staff meeting
to ground the staff in their day-to-day work. DineCARE (Saguaro
grantee 1993) recently incorporated an eight-hour session on
internalized oppression into their board meeting, in which they
addressed the effects of 500 years of oppression on their work, their
organization and their communities today. The Korean Immigrant Workers
Advocates (Saguaro grantee 1993)is planning brief sessions on gender
roles and homophobia in their membership meetings. All of these are
different forms of political education, chosen by each group according
to their need.
Ideally, political education is built into the life of an
organization, as in the examples provided above, utilizing internal
resources or bringing in a TA provider to the organizations meeting
place. Yet it is just as important for groups and individual activists
to have an opportunity to get away from their daily routines to
reflect, study, and engage with other activists.
Many of the Saguaro grantees I spoke with didnt know where they
could get the type of political education they were looking for
how to enter into a process of collective critical analysis as a
foundation for the next level of strategic planning for their
organization or for their network/community. There are not a lot of TA
providers with these skills. Teaching critical analysis requires an
approach and style that will match the particular needs of a group,
including language. Not all TA providers will match with all groups,
making the pool of providers that can teach critical analysis even
smaller.
27
Political education as a form of technical assistance is multilayered. In truth, organizational development TA is never done
separate from political education. Teaching about fundraising without
acknowledging the unjust distribution of wealth in the world, without
acknowledging that our class experience has defined our current
relationship to fiscal planning and fundraising, is a continuation of
the political education that supports the status quo in U.S. society.
Teaching traditional nonprofit board development without examining
group assumptions about power and decision-making is, whether
intentional or not, collusion with the political powers that be.
Mainstream nonprofit structure and management systems replicate
the structure and power relations of government and for-profit
corporations. There may be much about those systems that is effective
and can be put to good use by progressive organizations. Replicating
those systems, however, may also replicate the same power dynamics
that we are seeking to change. When progressive organizations of color
complain that technical assistance has been inappropriate for their
groups, they are not just complaining about cultural or linguistic
compatibility, although these are also problematic. They are saying
that the organizational models that are being taught are inadequate
for, or incompatible with, their needs and their vision.
28
4. The Politics of Technical Assistance

Im starting to rethink the validity or appropriateness of the
nonprofit organizational development structures that I, and
many of those I work with, have to offer. I've come to the point
where I see the 501(c)3 structure, with all the paperwork and
legal implications attached to it, as a deterrent to serious
social change work. Is a board as we traditionally know it really
a good or necessary thing for planning transformational or
revolutionary activity? Do our staffing structures facilitate
social change thinking and acting? We need to be asking these
questions and setting up structures and ways of doing things that
really support our vision and goals.
Tema Okun
Technical assistance in any area of organizational development
for a progressive social change organization of people of color is
inherently political. For the staff, volunteers, members and boards of
an organization, it is about how they communicate with each other and
with people and entities outside their group, how they make decisions,
how they sustain themselves, how they perpetuate their ideas and
institutions.
The majority of groups Saguaro funds are from communities who
have historically been under attack by the dominant social political
forces: organized immigrant farmworkers from Mexico and Central
America; queer and two-spirited people of color organizing their
communities; Native American activists fighting corporate pollution of
their lands; African Americans confronting police violence in the deep
South as well as in the inner cities; Asian women working for
reproductive health; mothers on welfare demanding a voice in the
community and demanding economic security for themselves and their
families. These are groups that have come together to change the
status quo; they form organizations as acts of self-determination. To
open themselves to a process which may require that they remake
themselves in a different image makes them highly vulnerable. The TA
process, while meant to empower, can just as easily disempower.
Technical Assistance (TA) is a term used to describe a kind of
management support for nonprofit organizations which promotes
their effectiveness in fulfilling their missions and goals. It is
a process through which management principles and practices are
applied to examine and improve organizational functioning and
performance.
Community Service Society of New York
The above definition of TA, from a directory of TA resources for
New York City nonprofits, is both succinct and illustrative of a basic
29
conflict Saguaro grantees face when seeking TA. The first part of this
definition, a kind of management support for nonprofit organizations
which promotes their effectiveness in fulfilling their missions and
goals, falls within the first category of TA identified by Saguaro:
assistance in the business of running an activist organization . . .
[and] managing a progressive nonprofit.
It is the second part of the definition here that is problematic:
a process through which management principles and practices are
applied to examine and improve organizational functioning and
performance. As many Saguaro grantees noted, they are activists whose
training and experience have not necessarily prepared them to be
nonprofit managers, and it is in the areas of organizational
leadership and management that they frequently request TA. Yet the
underlying assumptions of the management principles and practices
being applied during a given TA process may be in conflict with the
mission and vision of many progressive organizations not to
mention with the cultural practices and social structures of our
communities of color.
The Internalization of Structures of Domination

A lot of the assumptions of the strategic planning process
primarily come out of a corporate framework. Its difficult to
get folks out of that framework. . . I am talking about the
technology of strategic planning, even the linear thinking that
it implies, all of that stuff comes out of a particular sector. I
havent seen any TA provider who doesnt bring some of those core
assumptions from a linear and top-down structure.
Leah Wise
One concern of a number of activists interviewed, among them TA
providers and funders, was that the structure of a 501(c)(3) doesnt
necessarily fit the needs of a social change organization. Groups who
are not trying to form nonprofit corporations are still frequently
guided toward corporate models of board development and decisionmaking by TA providers and funders alike.
How and why our movements for social change have become channeled
into sectors of nonprofit organizations is a question beyond the scope
of this report, although that piece of history must be examined and
understood if we are to move beyond our current stasis. Radical social
change movements by people of color in this country were not always
funded by organized philanthropy. During the 1960s liberal foundations
and government entities began to channel money to communities which
were, literally, up in arms in the wake of the civil rights movement.
Very little analysis has been done of this phenomena from a
progressive perspective. One observer of the period, Joan Roelofs,
asserts that an
30
important aspect of the decline of the New Left was its

transformation, via grants and technical assistance from liberal
foundations, into organizations which are fragmented and local,
while subject to varying degrees of elite control.1
Such elite control may be in the form of boards of professionals
from outside the community; funding for safe or politically neutral
projects only; or by rewarding politically moderate leaders with jobs
and financial incentives. Roelofs goes on to say that
Grants are not the only way organizations are controlled;
technical assistance is provided both individually to grantees
and collectively through centers, conferences, consultants, and
publications (all financed by the liberal foundations).2
If there was a certain political intentionality in the initial
institutional funding of social change organiza-tions, geared to
redirect our leadership and energies, it was certainly not the first
time in the history of people of color in the U.S. that such a model
was employed.
In 1934, the Indian Reorganization Act was imposed by the United
States upon the various Native nations in order to eliminate
traditional forms of indigenous governance.
The Indian Reorganization Act required that tribal councils be formed
in a style that modeled corporate boards, complete with electoral
majority rule
which was and still is structurally antithetical to the
consensual form of decision making and selection of leadership
integral to most indigenous traditions. The Reorganization Act
was thus designed to undercut the unity marking traditional
native societies, replacing it with a permanent divisiveness . .
.3
The Indian Reorganization Act was part of the continued
colonization of Native nations; this particular legal device required
them to internalize the very structures of domination that were
attempting their genocide. While it did not happen as formally nor as
legalistically, there was similarly a period of reorganization of
the political and social movements for radical change through the
funding of nonprofit organizations within the communities being swept
up by these movements. (This is not to dismiss the other forms of
1
Joan Roelofs, Foundations and Social Change Organizations: The Mask of Pluralism, The
Insurgent Sociologist (n.d.) 31.
2
Joan Roelofs 36.
3
Rebecca L. Robbins, Self-Determination and Subordination: the Past, Present, and Future of
American Indian Governance, The State of Native America, M. Annette Jaimes, ed. 1992, South End
Press, Boston MA, 95.
31
governmental and corporate subversion carried out against social

change movements and communities of color during the past four
decades.) During this period, many of our organizations have
effectively internalized systems of government, styles of leadership,
and forms of decision-making that, in effect, have colonized our
thinking about ourselves.
After engaging in hours and days of conversation about the state
of our organizations, and reading articles and reports about
organizing and technical assistance, I found myself confronting a
certain degree of cognitive dissonance. These conversations are about
fundamental social change. Most of the leaders of the groups Saguaro
funds would tell you that they oppose the military industrial complex;
global imperialism; the destruction of our Earth and her resources;
racism, sexism and xenophobia; and the distribution of wealth in this
country. These are core values, which permeate every aspect of our
organizations visions and daily work. Yet most discussion about
technical assistance is devoid of any analysis of how our
organizational governance and financing fit within the local, national
or international political and economic systems. It is, to borrow an
analogy from the environmental justice movement, like prescribing
treatment for a series of cancer patients without addressing the fact
that they all live next to a toxic waste dump.
It is likewise frustrating to read other articles about TA from
the world of funders and TA providers which fail to place TA within
this broader political context. An article in the newsletter for the
Community Foundations and Neighborhoods Small Grants Program of the
C.S. Mott Foundation does acknowledge that nonprofit assistance
centers, while skilled in providing TA, are
often not attuned to neighborhood groups that may be
unincorporated, unstaffed, with annual budgets of only thousands
or hundreds of dollars, and a mission of problem solving,
leadership development and civic involvement.4
But problem solving, leadership development and civic involvement
are all politically neutral terms. If the leaders of our grassroots
organizations spend 75 percent of their time focusing on board
development, fundraising, office systems and personnel management,
when will they have time to put their political vision into action?
And if their thinking about organizational function and systems are
all structured on a corporate model, and their conversations with
staff, board and members is centered on how to get the organization to
fit into those structures, when do they envision and practice the
creation of radically different political/economic and social
structures and systems?
4
Partner, Using TA to Strengthen Neighborhood Grants Programs and Neighborhood Organizations,

Spring 1991, 4.
32
As a body of people of color dedicated to challenging traditional

structures of domination through our funding of progressive
organizations from our various communities, it behooves us to
critically examine the evolution of our organizations into nonprofits
and the evolution of TA that is based upon a set of corporate
principles of management that may be antithetical to our purpose.
33
5. Conclusions
The Saguaro Grantmaking Board began this inquiry into technical
assistance and progressive organizations in communities of color in
order to inform our activism as a funding body. The research I
conducted was based on two primary questions: What are the technical
assistance needs of Saguaros grantees and other progressive
organizations from communities of color, and what role might the
Saguaro Board play in helping these organizations meet their technical
assistance needs? The first question, on the surface, appears simple
enough to answer; ask the question, compile the answers. Listening to
the many voices of activists of color, funders and TA providers,
however, I became drawn into the complexity of their answers. Learning
about the technical assistance needs of our progressive organizations
of color is a many-layered proposition.
Saguaros Funding Priorities

It is useful here to return to the Saguaros mandate. Saguaro
seeks to fund models of organizing which:
are grassroots;
emphasize leadership development;
actively involve rank and file through empowerment, mass

education and politicization;
prioritize networking/alliance building; and

work in coalitions/organizations doing multi-issue work that
makes connections across divisions.
During the course of this research it became apparent that
organizations which are the most grassroots in communities of color
are the ones least likely to have access to any form of technical
assistance. These groups are also the most likely to be misled by
well-intentioned funders or other advisors recommending that they get
TA. The more grassroots an organization, the more they will need an
activist form of preparatory education prior to attending a standard
training on organizational development or fund-raising. Part of this
preparatory education is helping people understand the politics of
money and nonprofit sustainability. Notes Ingrid Washinawatak with the
Fund of the Four Directions,
the TA that needs to be done is to tell people the truth, tell
them what it is that they need to be prepared for and put it back
in their hands. Throwing money their way is not going to solve
the problem. There needs to be a TA of preparing communities for
the influx of money, to be ready for that.
Another part of preparatory TA education is familiarizing people with

the language and culture (or cultures) of organizational development.
34
Few grassroots activists are prepared for the new roles they will be
expected to assume, and for the toll that forming a new organization
will take on their work and their personal lives. I heard this same
observation from activists in Indian country, from people organizing
among the working poor and welfare recipients, and from those who work
with immigrant workers. Additionally, TA provision for those truly
grassroots organizations needs to be constructed in a manner that will
ensure long-term support, and consistent communication and follow-up.
Saguaro seeks to fund groups which emphasize leadership
development. It is critical, then, that we acknowledge the differences
between the leadership of nonprofit organizations and the leadership
of community activism. During the period that activist organizations
have become professionalized, the requirements for leadership have
expanded. This has resulted in putting undue expectations upon a
generation of leaders. In some cases, it has detoured leaders and
incipient leaders of social movements into management positions,
lessening the time, and sometimes the ability, to do their activist
work.
At other times this need for leadership in two distinct
areas has resulted in a leadership split among groups. I heard many
war stories about power dynamics within our organizations (including
within progressive foundations) but very little critical analysis
about some of the sources of conflict. A majority of activists, TA
providers and funders were concerned about our lack of emerging
leaders, and did not see TA that was specifically responding to this
need.
Among Saguaro grantees, there are particular challenges to
providing TA to groups that actively involve rank and file through
empowerment, mass education and politicization. One is language. Those
Saguaro grantees doing rank and file organizing tend to be groups that
work in immigrant communities. There are very few resources available
for these communities: few progressive TA providers with language
skills in Korean, or Spanish, or Tagalog. There are almost no training
materials in languages other than English; and extremely few training
materials even in English that are geared toward people of limited
literacy. In some cases, this results in a double-tiered or even
triple-tiered system, with monolingual English activists interfacing
with other organizations and institutions of power (funders,
governmental offices, corporations, banks, etc); bilingual activists
who may serve the same role and who also serve as translators and
bridges; and monolingual speakers of languages other than English
who may be skilled organizers and activists but who are ghettoized or
isolated by language barriers.
Another challenge to doing rank and file organizing among
immigrant workers is the highly mobile nature of some communities
(among agricultural workers, for example). Here the TA needs to be
culturally appropriate, taking into account the high rate of turnover
35
of leadership. Also critical in providing culturally appropriate TA to

these communities is an understanding of peoples background. Yin Ling
Leung, from Asians & Pacific Islanders for Reproductive Health
(Saguaro grantee 1994) explains
when in communities with bad experience with organizing, from an
undemocratic experience, we have to win credibility with them.
For example, the word organize may have bad connotations for
immigrants from South East Asia, or China.
Initial organizing work in these communities may look like service
provision. Progressive funders need to understand the different
vehicles for long-term organizing that may be called for in different
communities. And, the training and TA needs for activists doing mass
education and politicization in these rank and file communities will
be different as well. Right now, activists in these communities are
creating their own materials and their own trainings, even when they
have no experience doing so. Saguaro needs to look at what kind of
support these activists need to develop their own TA and trainers, and
to duplicate and share their materials. Saguaro may be in a unique
position to help these activists network Spanish-speakers looking
for TA materials in New York need to be connected with Spanishspeaking activists creating materials in Los Angeles.
In fact, networking and alliance-building is a Saguaro funding
priority, as is work in coalitions and organizations doing multi-issue
work that make connections across divisions. Unfortunately, Saguaro
grantees tend to be stretched in terms of responding to on going
crises in their communities, and in terms of working with budgets that
dont allow for full staffing. This means that they have less
opportunity and fewer resources to take advantage of potential
networking and alliance-building. I communicated with a range of
Saguaro grantees working in the same cities or regions who did not
know of each other.
Many activists, when talking about networking,
echoed Luis Flores and Gladys Ciprin at Centro Latino Cuzcatln in
San Francisco (Saguaro grantee 1997). Gladys and Luis said that they
would like to see real opportunities for activists to share skills and
engage in meaningful dialogue about concrete ways to promote movement
building, but that too many activist conferences did not facilitate
that happening.
Funders also need to be open to different forms of TA to
facilitate networking across divisions. Leah Wise of the Regional
Economic Justice Network (Saguaro grantee 1995) talks about working in
a largely African American community where there was an influx of new
immigrant workers from Mexico and Central America. Some years ago REJN
decided that their number one priority needed to be learning Spanish,
in order to facilitate mass organizing. When they floated a proposal
for Spanish lessons for their activist constituency, no funders
36
thought it was important. Now the community is dealing with huge

tensions between Black and immigrant communities, resulting in fatal
violence. Again, Saguaro is in a position to support crossconstituency organizing, but it must learn from activists how to
envision unique strategies for doing that.
Saguaro has high hopes and laudable goals for its funding
priorities. But even there, as activist funders, we have to critically
analyze how we go about ensuring that what we want in theory can be
carried out in practice. Larry Kleinman, of PCUN, Pineros y Campesinos
Unidos del Noroeste (Saguaro grantee 1996 and 1997), made a point of
stressing that
the problem with most training we see out there is that it is
mostly theory, not enough practice. Not enough follow-through.
People go to conferences and trainings and get exposed to good
lessons and experiences, [but] it takes a process to develop
something. If you dont have a strong process . . . then what you
get in training will be lost. Or self-destruct with the first
challenge. It takes a much bigger investment in TA to make
change.
As noted earlier in this report, several funders said they
struggle to remain true to their own organizational mission: funding
progressive social change, not providing TA and training. Funders said
that they frequently end up sponsoring training events or providing
technical assistance because there are not enough resources to meet
the particular needs of their grantees, that is, small activist
organizations. However, a number of progressive funders (as well as TA
providers and activists) urged their peers to acknowledge the power
that they do have. Gaye Evans, from the Appalachia Fund, notes that
Funders can play a role in the political development of groups.
Just by having guidelines that reflect our social, political and
spiritual values, we enable people to have those conversations,
which I think is part of political development. I think offering
other resources for workshops and trainings can be a good
alternative to specifically demanding that groups get TA. If you
have the infrastructure and resources to offer a workshop on
economics in Kentucky, or to help grantees to attend a training
on strip-mining, you can be a leader without making TA a
condition of funding.
And as Christie Balka of Bread and Roses noted, the decisions we make
as funders are never devoid of political implications.
One area of TA investment that is worth examination is in the
ongoing education of TA providers. Most progressive TA providers
learned their craft on the job. Although some organizer training
organizations and intermediary service organizations may provide inTA and Progressive Organizations for Social Change in Communities of Color
37
house training, there is no school for progressive TA providers. Nor

is there a system for evaluating skill level or training content.
Activist satisfaction with trainers from TA provider organizations
tended to vary wildly. Peer opinions about ability, content and
appropriateness also varied greatly.
It is important to note that progressive TA providers, and
particularly those who are people of color, rarely have the
opportunity to network with each other. There are few vehicles for on
going skill development. At a time when so many activists are wanting
new approaches to TA, we need to find ways to facilitate working
discussions among TA providers.
Developing a New Standard

In a report about supporting the needs of neighborhood
organizations in Portland, TA provider Kay Sohl observes
It is very difficult to know what we dont know. Organizations
which lack familiarity with standard systems or practices may be
unaware of their need for assistance in these areas.
Certainly many of the activists interviewed would agree, and
several of them stated clearly, that they were challenged by what they
didnt know about organizational development. Yet it is not just the
intricacies of how an organization functions that they, and we, lack
knowledge about. We lack a language to discuss structures and
functions that does not come from a corporate, hierarchical model.
Activists, trainers and funders all spoke of the lack of a
collective, critical analysis of our movements of where we are
now, of the forces ranged against us, of where we envision our
communities 10 years or seven generations from now, and of the
steps we shall take to get from here to there.
The first place to bring about change is within our own
organization. Saguaro Board members have benefited from exposure to
each others differences and from our annual meetings examining
movement strategy. I recommend that Saguaro ensure a way to maintain
its historical memory, so that each new class of activists joining
Saguaro can benefit from the learning and discussions that went
before. Saguaro and other small progressive funders suffer the same
problem many activist groups encounter: how to pass on the collective
wisdom to the next generation and how to bring up new leadership.
Saguaro Board members need to develop a strategic plan for
intentionally increasing the effectiveness of our funding. A critical
aspect of this will be accepting the external limitations placed upon
us the size of our annual budget, the number of groups we can
effectively assist and deciding to focus our strategy within those
limitations.
Saguaro has already begun the process of incorporating
multi-year grants into its funding plan.
38
I recommend that Saguaro make larger funding commitments to the

programs it does fund. That will require that we bite the bullet and
reconcile ourselves with the fact that more money means reaching fewer
groups. A survey of the FEX member funds reveals that a majority of
them give very small grants, emphasizing seed or start-up programs. It
is much easier for a group to obtain several small grants of $1,000
to $3,000 than to get general operating funds that will cover their
rent for a year or a half- or even full-salary line. Let us complement
the work of other small funders by providing the fertilizer our
organizations need once the seed has been planted, through more
aggressive funding and through supporting TA that meets the very
specific needs of our communities of color.
Recommendations for Supporting Progressive TA in Serving

Activist Communities of Color
1. Actively promote discussion of the development of TA in the area of
movement building among other progressive funders (FEX member funds,
NNG, etc.).
2. Promote the development of technical assistance trainings and
materials specific to the needs of progressive social change
organizations from communities of color;
3. Fund or co-fund a gathering of progressive TA providers who work in
communities of color to enable them to network and share skills and
to develop a collective critical analysis of the training needs of
progressive organizations from communities of color from a movementbuilding perspective;
4. Solicit proposals for and/or support trainings of trainers of TA (in
both spheres, organizational development and movement building) in
languages other than English and for limited-literacy English
speakers;
5. Fund trainings of trainers to increase the number of progressive TA
providers of color, and the numbers of trainers of progressive TA
trainers;
6. Solicit proposals for and/or support the development of new
approaches to TA for movement-building, and for organizational
development TA that reflects a critical analysis of the needs of
progressive organizations from communities of color;
7. Fund the development of preparatory TA education programs with
built-in follow-up and support geared specifically towards the
communities of color with the least access to funders and TA:
beginning with remote Native communities, followed by low-income
African American communities in the rural south. Such a project
might be developed in conjunction with other funders (at least two
expressed an interest in exploring such a possibility) addressing
the needs of these communities;
39
8. Reserve a portion of monies each funding cycle for Saguaro grantees

to attend trainings (including stipends, childcare and travel when
necessary) and have funds available for follow-up such as one-on-one
or conference calls between participants, travel for a regional
meeting of participants, etc.;
9. Host or fund a training of trainers for providers of organizational
development TA who want to incorporate the movement-building
component into their work;
10.
Fund the development of an accessible (literacy-level
appropriate) hands-on manual for groups wanting to self-direct their
own organizational development and political education processes;
and
11.
Host a movement-building conference (annually, bi-annually?) to
facilitate networking among Saguaro grantees; do this possibly in
conjunction with other FEX national funds and/or member funds.
40
In Closing
The philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways; the
point is, to change it.5
After talking with over 70 activists, activist/funders and
activist/trainers from around the country, I am perhaps even more
concerned than I was at the start of this research about the state of
our various movements for social change. I was at different points
excited and inspired by the work of our activist organizations of
color, and honored by this opportunity to hear their stories. I was
moved to both laughter and tears during the course of our
conversations. I want very much for these projects to bear fruit for
the polluting corporations to be banished from our lands, for workers
to develop powerful associations capable of negotiating for their
rights, for strong alliances of women of color of all sexual
orientations to succeed in protecting our right to bear healthy
children when, where, how, and if we choose.
The voices of many of these activists their interpretations of
our activist world, if you will might differ on some points.
Whatever disagreement there may be on methodology or approach, one
truth rang clear in all of the stories I heard: There are gaping needs
and open wounds in our organizations, in our organizational capacity
and in our social movements. If we do not respond to them with all the
resources at our command, then the results will be the continued
floundering, stagnation and decline of the groups we have entrusted
with carrying our movements forward.
Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach. In Marx and Engels, Collected Works vol. 5. Moscow: Progress
Publishers, 1978.
41
Appendix 1
Questions posed to Saguaro grantees
What are some of your past, current and future technical assistance
needs?
Have those technical assistance needs been met in the past?
Are you finding adequate funding for those needs now?

Do you know where you can get the type of technical assistance that
you need?
Have you been satisfied with recent technical assistance you have
received? Why or why not?
Have you and your funders been in agreement about the type of
technical assistance you need?
In your work with your constituents and sister organizations, what
do you perceive to be the greatest gap in terms of technical
assistance training?
What kind of technical assistance resources do you believe are
missing, if any? How would you meet that need?
Other thoughts or comments directed toward progressive funders

regarding this topic?
Questions posed to funders
Do you fund technical assistance?

do you fund, if any?
What size technical assistance grants to do you make?
What percentage of your funding budget is dedicated to technical

assistance?
What technical assistance needs are you seeing in the groups you are
funding (or not funding)?
Are you satisfied with the technical assistance resources available
for your grantees?
What kind of technical assistance
Do you ever fund groups contingent on their getting specific kinds

of technical assistance?
Do you recommend or contract with particular technical assistance

providers?
Do you have any concerns regarding "the state of technical
assistance" for progressive organizations?
As a progressive funder, do you think technical assistance can or

should play a role in the political development of these groups?
42
Any other comments or concerns you might have?
Questions posed to technical assistance providers
What types of technical assistance do you provide?

Who are your trainers?
What are your fees for service? Is there a sliding scale?
What type of on going support do you provide to groups after the
initial training or service? Is there a fee for that?
Do you endorse or embrace a particular philosophy and/or methodology
(of organizational development, community organizing, political
campaigning, etc.)?
What is your perception of the current technical assistance needs of
small progressive organizations?
Is there congruency with what groups and funders are asking for and
what you believe they need?
Other thoughts or concerns for other progressive funders and/or
technical assistance providers?
43
Appendix 2
TA Providers Consulted for this Report
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Adriana Balln/Community Consulting Network, Chicago,IL

Nilak Butler, San Francisco, CA
Carmen Chavez, Brooklyn, NY
Antonio Diaz/PODER, San Francisco, CA
Debbie Harry, Nixon, NV
Paul Haible, San Francisco, CA**
Becky Johnson
Cooperative Economics for Women, Boston, MA
8. Paul Kivel, Oakland, CA
9. Tema Okun, Durham, NC
10.
Deepak Pateriya/Environmental Justice Project, Los Angeles, CA
11.
Sonia Pea/Center for Third World Organizing, Oakland, CA
12.
Chris Peters/Seventh Generation Fund, Arcata, CA**
13.
Lori Pourier/Indigenous Womens Network, Rapid City, SD*
14.
June Rostan/Southern Empowerment Project, Maryville, TN
15.
Stephanie Roth, Berkeley, CA
16.
Jerome Scott/Project South, Atlanta, GA*
17.
Kay Sohl/Technical Assistance for Community Services, Portland, OR
18.
Mark Toney/Strategic Tools, Oakland, CA
19.
Hugh Vasquez/TODOS Institute, Oakland, CA
20.
Jackie Warledo/Greenpeace, Tulsa, OK
* indicates a TA provider interviewed as a Saguaro grantee
** indicates a TA provider who is also a funder
44
Appendix 3
Activists Consulted for this Report
Adrienne Barbee, Austin, TX

Sharon Bridgforth, Austin, TX
Faye Brown, Minneapolis, MN
Joe Bruch, Austin, TX
Nilak Butler, San Francisco, CA
Miriam Ching Louie, Oakland, CA
Suzanne Henry, Austin, TX
Michael Marinez, San Antonio, TX
Mitty Owens, Durham, NC
Graciela Sanchez, San Antonio, TX
Antonio Diaz, San Francisco, CA
Jackie Warledo, Tulsa, OK
45
Appendix 4
Progressive Funders Interviewed
FEX Member Funds
Gaye Evans, Appalachian Community Fund, Knoxville, TN

Christie Balka, Bread and Roses Community Fund, Philadelphia, PA
Mike Roque, Chinook Fund, Denver, CO
Chris DArpa, Crossroads Fund, Chicago, IL
Nancy Weiss, Fund for Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA
Jack Beckford, Fund for Southern Communities, Atlanta, GA
Pat Maher, Haymarket Peoples Fund, Boston, MA
Joy Palmer, Headwaters Fund, Minneapolis, MN
Lina Paredes, Liberty Hill Foundation, Los Angeles, CA
Linda Reymers, McKenzie River Gathering Foundation, Portland, OR
Betty Kapetanikis, North Star Fund, New York, NY
Meliza Jackson, Three Rivers Community Fund, Pittsburgh, PA
Kelly Brown, Vanguard Public Foundation, San Francisco, CA
Steve Starky, Wisconsin Community Fund, Madison, WI
Other Funders
Ingrid Washinawatak, Fund of the Four Directions, New York, NY

Luis Solis, Hispanic Federation of New York City, New York, NY
Amanda Berger, Jewish Fund for Justice, New York, NY
Marjorie Fine, Northshore Unitarian Veatch Foundation, New York, NY
Suzanne Henry (board), Open Meadows Fund, Austin, TX
Paul Haible (board), Peace Development Fund, San Francisco, CA
Robin Carton, Resist, Somerville, MA
Chris Peters, Seventh Generation Fund, Arcata, CA
Ray Santiago, Tides Foundation, San Francisco, CA
46
Background Readings
Beckwith, Dave and Lopez, Cristina. Community Organizing: People
Power From the Grassroots. Center for Community Change.
[http://131.183.70.50/comm-org/papers97/beckwith.htm#
fourstrats]. 1997.
Center for Third World Organizing. Leadership Development Program
Report[http://www.cetwo.org/ctwo/ report/leadmaap.html]. n.d.
Community Service Society of New York (CSS). TAG Technical Assistance
Guide. A directory of resources for new York nonprofit
organizations. 3rd ed. New York: Office of Information CSS and
the New York Technical Assistance Providers Network. 1997.
Delgado, Gary. Beyond the Politics of Place. New Directions in
Community Organizing. Berkeley: Chardon Press. 1997.
Miller, Michael. Beyond the Politics of Place: A Critical Review.
COMM-ORG, at http://uac.rdp.utoledo.edu/docs/commorg/papers96/Millerindex.html. 1996.
Mott, Andrew H. Building Systems of Support for Neighborhood Change.
A Report to the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Washington,
D.C.: Center for Community Change. 1997.
Partner. Using Technical Assistance to Strengthen Neighborhood Grants
Programs and Neighborhood Organizations. Partner: The Newsletter
for the C.S. Mott Foundations Community Foundations &
Neighborhood Small Grants Program. Spring 1991.
Peace Development Fund (PDF). Peace Developments. Newsletter of the
Peace Development Fund (40). Spring 1997.
Project South. Popular Education for Movement Building: A Resource
Guide. Atlanta: Project South. 1998.
Redmond, Tim. Privatizing the Public Agenda. San Francisco
Chronicle. October 8, 1997.
Robbins, Rebecca L. Self-Determination and Subordination. The Past,
Present, and Future of American Indian Governance. The State of
Native America. Genocide, Colonization, and Resistance. M.
Annette Jaimes, editor. Boston: South End Press. 1992.
Roelofs, Joan. Foundations and Social Change Organizations: The Mask
of Pluralism. The Insurgent Sociologist. n.d.
47
Shuman, Michael H. Why do Progressive Foundations Give Too Little to

Too Many? The Nation. January 12/19, 1998.
Sohl, Kay. Capacity Building Assistance for Community-Based
Organizations in Low Income Communities. A Report Prepared for
the Bureau of Housing & Community Development. Portland, Oregon.
February, 1995.
Thorpe, Dagmar. editor. People of the Seventh Fire. Returning Lifeways
of Native America. Ithaca, NY: Akwe:kon Press. 1996.
Toney, Mark. Tapping Community Vitality. A Cross Sectional Assessment
of the Intermediary Support Program of the Charles Stewart Mott
Foundation. Oakland: Applied Research Center. September, 1997.
West, Heather L. Community Organizing in Ohio: A Need for Networking,
Assistance and Support. Lorain, Ohio: Grassroots Leadership
Development Program. January, 1998.
48

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Technical Assistance & Progressive Organizations for

Social Change in Communities of Color

1999 Funding Exchange / Luz Guerra

Editor's note: this is the original report based on interviews with

Guerra ~ TA and Progressive Organizations for Social Change in Communities of Color

A Challenge for the Saguaro Board: Examining our Role

actively involve rank and file through empowerment, mass

prioritize networking/alliance building; and

work in coalitions/organizations doing multi-issue work that

Guerra ~ TA and Progressive Organizations for Social Change in Communities of Color

actors in our common space of activism. This inquiry is an intentional

Guerra ~ TA and Progressive Organizations for Social Change in Communities of Color

change in the United States. Thus, we were concerned with

Defining Technical Assistance

focus on political education as a legitimate form of technical

Working Definition of TA for This Inquiry

TA and Progressive Organizations for Social Change in Communities of Color

2. Saguaro Grantees and Technical Assistance

Chart 1. Saguaro Grant Recipients Interviewed

Action for Community Empowerment (ACE)

Jacqueline Nia Mason

ALLGO (Austin Latina/Latino Lesbian and Gay

Asians & Pacific Islanders for Reproductive

Yin Ling Leung

Audre Lorde Project (ALP)

Joo Hyun Kang

TA and Progressive Organizations for Social Change in Communities of Color

Bay Area Policewatch Project (BAPP)

Central Latino Cuzcatln (CLC)

Luis Flores, Gladys Ciprin

Centro Independiente de Trabajadores Agrcolas

Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence (CAAAV)

Cooperative Economics for Women (CEW)

Fuerza Unida (FU)

Viola Casares / Petra Mata

HUD Tenants Coalition of Newark

Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN)

Tom Goldtooth, IEN

Indigenous Womens Network (IWN)

Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates (KIWA)

TA and Progressive Organizations for Social Change in Communities of Color

Latino Workers Center (LWC)

New Mexico Alliance (NMA)

Reyna Luz Jurez **

Oregon Human Rights Coalition

People Organized in Defense of the Earth and

Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN)

Project South: Institute for the Elimination of

Vernon Stokay, RAPPS

Sawmill Advisory Council (SAC)

Valerie Bellson & Nat Stone

Southeast Regional Economic Justice Network

Workers Organizing Committee

** Indicates individuals that have served on the Saguaro Grantmaking Board.

TA and Progressive Organizations for Social Change in Communities of Color

TA and Progressive Organizations for Social Change in Communities of Color

Chart 2. Constituencies Served by Saguaro Fund Grantees 19931997

includes populations born in the U.S.

TA and Progressive Organizations for Social Change in Communities of Color

requiring a lot of travel or transportation of members. Most of the

Self-Identified Needs for Technical Assistance

A majority of the groups interviewed identified movement building

TA and Progressive Organizations for Social Change in Communities of Color

Chart 3. Self-Identified Needs Saguaro Grantees

Technical Assistance & Progressive Organizations

Technical Assistance & Progressive Organizations