Chapters
What are CCF Chapters?
CCF Chapters are local groups that translate the CCF values and principles into direct action and advocacy that works for their local context. Chapters resource people doing the on-the-ground work, help improve their immediate felt environment at their jobs, help build solidarity with others experiencing the same oppressions, and they are beginning to cross-pollinate between each other to serve as critical infrastructure for the movement!
What are the plans for the chapters?
CCF Global is beginning to set the groundwork to help Chapters cross-pollinate more so they can help each other solve the local challenges and build the movement out to be more accessible. To that end, CCF Global is organizing the first Chapter Pilot Cohort—a peer-led intentional space where Chapter Stewards will gather and decide what their biggest pain points are and solve them as a group.
Chapters who have signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with CCF Global will be invited to participate.
How do I create a local Chapter?
Local Chapters can be started by anyone who is willing to steward one! If you would like to form a group, here are some general guidelines and requests:
- Join our Mighty Network to find similarly interested folks and start up your own CCF group. (there may already be one started! So be sure to check first.)
- Review the CCF Values and Principles to ensure you are generally aligned with them. You don’t have to agree with everything, of course, since we are exploring and learning together. But, overall, you should generally agree with them.
- Center and prioritize the voices and lived experience of people of color and other people from marginalized communities.
If you want to make it official and want to organize with CCF Global and future iterations of the Chapter Cohort, reach out to Abigail to learn more and sign the MOA.
Some advice as you formulate your CCF Chapter:
- This is a movement, so try to be flat, equitable, and non-hierarchical in your leadership structure.
- Be okay with taking risks and making mistakes, and prepared to take accountability and do repair.
- Be thoughtful about colleagues who have disabilities, neurodiversities, caretaking responsibilities, those who are in recovery from alcohol or substances, those who must use public transportation, and more. Have meetings in accessible spaces, free from addictive substances, reachable by public transportation during times that may be outside of work hours, etc.
- Have fun. This is a movement to transform fundraising to be more aligned with equity and social justice. That sounds serious, but fundraisers have always been amazing, creative, hilarious folks. Create a sense of fun and community when you can.
If your community is mainly white, you can still form a CCF Chapter. Here is some advice:
- Be thoughtful about centering and not otherizing or burning out the people of color in your chapter. Too often, BIPOC folks are relegated to teaching positions and forced to spend their time continually educating others. It is tiring, especially in spaces that are meant to center them.
- Consider including a white ally affinity and learning group space in your planning. White allies can be extremely helpful by talking about various topics among themselves in order to prevent leaders of color from having to do the emotional and other labors of constantly educating our white colleagues and managing unchecked fragility.
- Be aware of the tendency of recreating systems of oppression including that drive people of color away from spaces. Ensure that you are not consciously or unconsciously excluding people of color. Take time to build relationships and where you can, encourage people of color, with the end goal of ensuring that leadership of your chapter is eventually led by people of color.