100 DAYS OF BUILDING POWER AND SOLIDARITY: OBSERVATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ABOUT IMMEDIATE AND LONG-TERM INFRASTRUCTURE NEEDS FOR PALESTINIAN, MUSLIM, AND ARAB GROUPS IN THE U.S.

Since late 2022, the Building Movement Project has released a series of reports on the infrastructure needs of various communities and movements in order to provide ideas and recommendations to strengthen the nonprofit sector and social movements.

100 Days of Building Power and Solidarity: Observations and Recommendations about Immediate and Long-Term Infrastructure Needs for Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab Groups in the U.S., is a collaboration with Muslims for Just Futures (MJF), a grassroots organization that builds power in Muslim communities through collective care, organizing, advocacy, and movement-building.

This report highlights the emerging needs of organizations working closely with Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, South Asian, and Black communities in the United States as the genocide in Gaza passes the 100 day mark in January 2024.

THE OBSERVATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS IN THIS REPORT SYNTHESIZE CONVERSATIONS AROUND NEEDS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR INFRASTRUCTURE AND SOLIDARITY TO ADDRESS THE CURRENT CRISIS AND PLAN FOR THE LONG-TERM.

Beginning in October 2023, our two organizations hosted a weekly rapid response call that brought together Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, South Asian, Sikh and Black community groups. During these weekly conversations, groups around the country exchanged information, developed strategy, deepened relationships, and identified infrastructure and capacity needs. The resources and contributions from each weekly call resulted in an updated internal resources document accessible to all organizational actors as well as a publicly available summary of available resources.

WE WROTE THIS REPORT FOR THREE REASONS:

1. Preserve in real time the needs of community leaders that emerged in the weekly calls;
2. Document the backlash facing Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and South Asian communities in the US since October 2023; and,
3. Amplify recommendations that can build infrastructure and solidarity during and beyond this period of acute urgency.

We hope that the information provided here can be used by various stakeholders – ally groups, civic, faith, movement and nonprofit leaders, philanthropic institutions, government agencies, and community members – to robustly support the ecosystem of organizations working with directly affected communities during this time of crisis and beyond.

Of note, we discuss the unprecedented nature of the current backlash, how community organizations are addressing diverse and high volume community needs with very few resources, and how solidarity efforts both ground and uplift common goals and add necessary visibility.

While this report is not meant to provide a comprehensive overview of all the needs surfacing right now, it identifies cross-cutting themes and provides ideas for the field and stakeholders to plan for what is likely to be a challenging road ahead for the foreseeable future.