Mic Check! is a podcast featuring conversations with young women, intersex, queer, and trans folks of color about what it’s really like on the frontlines and backlines of the fight for gender justice, and how listeners can best support grassroots movements.
New leadership is constantly emerging in organizations — how can we find ways to celebrate, honor, and document important stories of shared leadership and healthy transitions? As our current Co-Directors, Ana Conner and Kiyomi Fujikawa, prepare to transition out of their roles in early 2024 and two new leaders join us, we’re reflecting on a long lineage of transformative leadership that has shaped and guided our organization over the years.
We’re excited to have some impactful folks from throughout our organization’s history speak to the power of shared leadership. We’ll be hearing from one of Third Wave’s founders Amy Richards, Program Officer at the Foundation for a Just Society and former Third Wave Board Member Paulina Helm-Hernandez, the current Co-Chairs of our Advisory Council Loan Tran and Adjoa Sankofia Tetteh, former Director of Third Wave Rye Young, and Executive Director at New York Foundation and former Third Wave Board Member Rickke Mananzala. We’ll also be hearing from a few current Third Wave staff members, including Communications Officer Monica Trinidad and Development Associate Jillian Jacobs, as they reflect on how both they and our organization has grown and shifted in the last five years.
Total Run Time: 36:17
Date Release: December 13, 2023
An english transcription of the podcast episode, list of guests, and links to things mentioned in podcast episode will be available on our website on Thursday, December 14, 2023 at https://www.thirdwavefund.org/podcasts.
31 Jul 2023
Episode 7: Transforming Our Relationships with Conflict & Accountability
Conflict is inevitable–so how do we fortify our relationship to it? What approaches to conflict can we take when it shows up in our organizations and communities? What are some ways philanthropy can strengthen its support for organizations leading transformative justice work?
At Third Wave Fund, we have been dreaming alongside some of the most inspiring organizers and leaders in transformative justice organizing to answer these questions and more. We’re joined by Stas, co-founder of Spring Up, bluelight academy of the arts, and member of the Accountable Futures Fund Advisory Council, and Valleria Miranda-Ferrick, Executive Director and founder of Unity Circles to discuss the work they are leading to deprofessionalize transformative justice and make its teachings more accessible to all. Stas and Valleria also speak to the needs of the transformative justice movement, and how philanthropy can better support the emergence of more transformative justice facilitators and accountability coaches. We also get a great primer of what Third Wave’s Accountable Futures Fund does to co-conspire in these goals, and how it came to be from our Program Officer mai doan.
An english transcription of this podcast episode and links to things mentioned in the episode are available on our website: https://www.thirdwavefund.org/podcast.html
14 Feb 2023
Episode 6 Part 2: Centering Sex Worker Leadership & Liberation
Why are sex workers uniquely positioned to lead reproductive justice efforts? In what ways can philanthropy shift to better bolster and sustain sex worker-led organizing? Continuing our conversation from last week's episode with sex worker organizers Jenna Torres and Raquel Savage, we discuss the ways in which sex worker-led organizing and reproductive justice overlap, and how philanthropy can step up and better support sex worker-led organizing efforts without co-opting their movements.
English transcription of podcast episode and links to things mentioned in podcast episode available on our website: https://www.thirdwavefund.org/podcast.html
1 Feb 2023
Episode 6 Part 1: Centering Sex Worker Leadership & Liberation
What is sex-worker led organizing, and why is it important to center sex workers in gender justice organizing? As an organization that houses the Sex Worker Giving Circle and has been supporting sex worker-led organizations since 1998, we have always believed in the power of centering and resourcing the gender justice work that sex workers lead. Along with sex worker organizers Jenna Torres and Raquel Savage, this episode dives deeper into why it is important to center current and former sex workers in gender justice organizing, what decriminalization is and isn’t, and the ways that sex work decriminalization overlaps with abolition movements. We also get a great primer on what the Sex Worker Giving Circle at Third Wave Fund is and how it came to be from Third Wave’s very own Christian Giraldo and Pati Morales!
Total Run Time: 43 minutes
Date Recorded: November 1, 2022
Date Release: January 31, 2023
English transcription of podcast episode and links to things mentioned in podcast episode available on our website: https://www.thirdwavefund.org/podcast.html
28 May 2020
Episode 5: Making it Through an Economic Crisis: Learnings & Offerings from the Field
Did you know that Third Wave Fund almost completely shut down during the 2008 economic recession? What the heck happened? How did Third Wave make it through? More importantly, who helped us out of the hole to thrive and exist as the feminist community fund we are today? We’re excited to welcome back former Executive Director Rye Young to be in conversation with our current Co-Directors, Ana Conner & Kiyomi Fujikawa, to get the historical take on what Third Wave experienced during the 2008 economic crisis, the lessons we learned, and what philanthropy can do to ensure our movements weather the COVID-19 pandemic storm and subsequent economic crisis.
Total Run Time: 47:22
Date Release: Thursday, May 28, 2020
English transcription of podcast episode, guest bios, and links to things mentioned in podcast episode available on our website: https://www.thirdwavefund.org/podcast.html
9 Jul 2019
Episode 4: Healing Justice as Cultural Organizing
What is the glue that binds our resistance work? How does healing justice fit into our resistance for the long haul? We sat down with Kifu Faruq of the Icarus Project to discuss healing justice as a foundational part of organizing and activism work. As we're witnessing the philanthropy field moving more funds towards healing justice work, we want to make sure the message is loud and clear that healing justice funding needs to be sustainable. The Icarus Project is an Own Our Power Fund and Mobilize Power Fund grantee.
18 Oct 2018
Episode 3: Cha-cha-cha-changes! The Value of Leadership Transitions
Transitions in organizational leadership always get a bad wrap, but are they truly moments of crisis, or critical opportunities for growth and transformation? On this episode, Monica Trinidad is joined by guest host Pidgeon, an internationally-recognized intersex activist, academic, writer and artist. We join Third Wave Fund's Outgoing Executive Director, Rye Young, to talk about his time at Third Wave Fund, what it was like going from intern to ED, why it's important that he makes room for new leadership, and all the crucial steps necessary to ensure sustainability in transition.
25 Jul 2018
Episode 2: Disruption, Healing Justice, and the Necessity of Creating Autonomous Spaces
Our 2nd episode comes to you live from the Allied Media Conference in Detroit, MI this past June! We sat down with Phoenix-based organizers, Xyra and Crystal of Trans Queer Pueblo, an autonomous LGBTQ+ migrant community of color who work to generate community power for liberation. Xyra and Crystal dive deep into the importance of healing justice within anti-criminalization work, the value of disruption, and the necessity of creating alternative, autonomous spaces for queer and trans people of color.
But before we dive into that conversation, we had two quick chats with rad organizers from former grantee partners Southerners on New Ground (SONG) & Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project. They stopped by our table to say hello in the AMC Exhibition Room and we asked them how their AMC was going, what knowledge they’re bringing back to their organizations, and of course, how funders can do better at respecting organizers time and labor.
Trans Queer Pueblo receives multi-year support through Third Wave Fund's Grow Power Fund and have also received the Mobilize Power Fund for urgent community mobilization.
7 May 2018
Episode 1: Abolishing Police and ICE, the Myth of Separate Movements
In this inaugural episode, we chat with LA-based organizer Yessica Gonzalez of Immigrant Youth Coalition, and Chicago-based organizer Hannah Baptiste of Assata’s Daughters. From police abolition to dismantling ICE, we dive deep into conversations around shared visions of liberation, Black & brown solidarity across the work, and how funders can do better at respecting organizers' time and labor. Both Assata's Daughters and Immigrant Youth Coalition receive multi-year support through Third Wave's Grow Power Fund and have also been grantees of the Mobilize Power Fund for urgent activist and organizing needs in their communities. Tune in!
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