Discover how CLLCTIVLY was started and how our story began.
In 2015 after the death of Freddie Gray, a coalition of grassroots activists and concerned citizens came together to form Baltimore United for Change. In the days following the Uprising we launched a skills bank to create an “on ramp” for concerned community members that wanted to serve. Over 260 individuals and organizations answered the call.
Community organizations often work in silos, these silos lead to fragmentation, fragmentation leads to duplication, and duplication leads to wasted resources – time, talent and treasure. CLLCTIVLY launched in 2019 with the first phase of our project, (CLLCTIV ASSETS) an online asset map/directory of organizations in Greater Baltimore listed by neighborhood and area of concentration.
CLLCTIVLY is a place-based social change organization centering Black Genius, Narrative Power, Social Networks, and Resource Mobilization.
Our mission is to end the fragmentation and duplication of programs, to learn from and about each other, and to be a resource for the Greater Baltimore community that seeks to find, fund and partner with Black social change organizations.
WE ARE CREATING AN ECOSYSTEM TO FOSTER COLLABORATION, INCREASE SOCIAL IMPACT AND AMPLIFY THE VOICES OF BLACK-LED ORGANIZATIONS IN GREATER BALTIMORE.
Ecosystem
See the phases of development that we’re undertaking as we build the CLLCTIVLY platform and vision.
Our Framework
Understand our vision to develop a decentralized holistic framework for Community Empowerment.
#BEYONDREACTIVISM
#MLK2BAKER
Ella Baker was a civil rights pioneer and activist and co-founder the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Baker was critical of the patriarchal, hierarchical and messianic leadership style of the civil rights movement. Baker argued for a more democratic model, called participatory democracy.
From Jena 6 to Freddie Gray, social media has played an integral part in how we organize and galvanize the masses. The democratization of communication has led to new decentralized models of leadership. #MLK2BAKER looks at the role of social media, traditional media and social justice organizing and raises a couple of questions:
As social media begins to democratize communication, can the hashtag lead us to an Ella Baker model of movement building (Participatory Democracy)?
How can these tools be utilized to help us move #BeyondReActivism? Beyond the tweeting and protest of #BlackDeath to a more sustained movement or holistic community development?
IDEOLOGY IS THE GLUE.
INTERLOCKING PRINCIPLES
On December 10, 1988, George Edward Tait published an article entitled, “Interlocking Principles: Kwanzaa and Buy Black Campaign”, a strategy to incorporate the principles of Kwanzaa into the “Buy Black Campaign.” What Tait essentially set out to do was to move us from celebrating the principles of Kwanzaa once a year to incorporating them into our everyday life. Tait stated that these principles must become an “integral part of our daily existence and not just limited to a hasty observance during the final holiday season of the year.’
Hashtags based campaigns or decentralized movements without a holistic ideological framework keep us in reActivism mode, moving from issue to issue, leaving little energy to organize for sustainable solutions and change. Building campaigns with a holistic ideological framework moves us #BeyondreActivism. Activism rooted in principles hold community members accountable to the agreed upon framework. Our campaigns must be holistic, with principles that lead to sustainable change.
WHAT’S IN YOUR HAND?
ASSET-BASED FRAMEWORK
Asset-Based Community Development is a proactive strategy for sustainable community-driven development that considers local assets as the primary building blocks of sustainable community development. Asset-based community development draws upon existing community strengths to build stronger, more sustainable communities for the future.
