Regardless of intentions, non-profit organizations - as part of the non-profit industrial complex - can pose a huge barrier to social change. Efforts to relegitimize their own existence derail social movements by co-opting calls for systemic, cultural, and transformative change.

Last week, we saw how this concern manifested in so-called Ottawa.

Full details here:

https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vR9hwK5gLHYgk9WnCbNbM1Oc8wxGcZjh3CF2smYgrzthK0-YbeffvX2Z-kJ9vaM4P429IEhcZiIfgK4/pub

This is why grassroots organizing must be led by the people in their respective communities, which sometimes includes keeping a distance from non-profit organizations that extend the power of the colonial, capitalist, and carceral state.

#WeKeepEachOtherSafe

Last week, CAMS and @CPEPgroup were notified of a closed-door meeting of executive directors from various NPOs across Ottawa. They were discussing alternatives to policing. No one from the community was invited, despite the on-going labour of community members.

Calls for alternatives to police come from grassroots groups working towards abolitionist futures. It's not acceptable for NPOs, who have (in)direct ties with police, to meet without being transparent with the communities within which they work. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfhGAsyW1_naWEGrOH9xqf98BjCxFvwIvNCSoANI_bfE6m5vw/viewform

We attended the meeting with @CPEPgroup to ask for full and complete transparency around these conversations.

Many of the attendees have longstanding partnerships with the police. They have often served as a major barrier to those who have been calling for meaningful & transformative change. It was unclear why they were centring their own voices and concerns on an issue they perpetuate.

We heard a lot of troubling comments in this meeting. Many attendees were either not aware of the harms police cause within their respective organizations/services or were avoiding accountability by deflecting responsibility for their role in these harms.

We ask the NPOs who are suddenly choosing to engage in these conversations to acknowledge that these calls are rooted in movements informed by the lived experience of human suffering and violence. They are not to be co-opted, diminished, or watered down.

We ask non-profit organizations choosing to push for change to demonstrate their commitment by meeting these expectations (immediate & ongoing) in their work moving forward and refrain from speaking on behalf of community groups and members.

We ask community members, organizers, and employees of the non-profit sector who may share our concerns to sign on to our form (linked below) and support these expectations. We are also asking for your feedback, input, and concerns.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd3WovjU4AccUDM4PftkMA13ZaTq0Djb7kkUadPXSr8QHqCDA/viewform

We also ask for community members and organizers pushing for change to pay more attention, with a critical eye, to the non-profit industrial complex and the role it plays in hindering, impeding, and co-opting the community's calls for change.
#WeKeepEachOtherSafe #DefundThePolice