Microgrants Summer Pause 2021

Dear Community,

As a program, Microgrants was in a process of deep reflection on where we are and where we’ve been over the past four years. Pauses are necessary for the growth and longevity of all work, teams, and to intentionally plan for the future.

Here’s what you need to know:

Name Change Microgrants opened on February 1, 2022
HRT Microgrants opened December 1, 2021
In order to care for our community during this time, we pledged a total of $56,000 to community-based organizations for supporting trans people with name changes, and an additional $24,000 to organizations working with migrants for twenty-four $1,000 microgrants to trans asylum seekers.

We take our cues from nature, following the work of adrienne maree brown and emergent strategy: there are pauses, moments of rest and inactivity everywhere in the natural world. We trust this cycle to return us with lessons learned and energy stored to continue to align our services with our values.

To counteract the churning machinery of capitalism, we look to the work of Tricia Hersey who tells us that rest is a revolutionary act of resistance in the face of white supremacy. Microgrants started as a hyperlocal mutual aid project and transitioned to a national microgranting program very quickly, and parts of our program and tech didn’t scale up as effectively as we would have liked.

During this pause, we committed to:

Finding new ways to bring sustainable practices into our work
Engaging in self-reflection about how we’ve acted in our values, and times when we could have done better
Studying the structural barriers set up by white supremacy that hinder our access to accurate identifying legal documents
Deepening and expanding our racial equity frameworks
Allowing the time and space for slowing down, relocating joy and purpose in our work, and counteracting burnout

We are deeply committed to easing your ability to move through the world as your most authentic self. It is our honor to be in community with you, and our pledge is to support our community by still distributing the same total amount of financial assistance this year.

With big hugs and wishes for your wellbeing,

Trans Lifeline’s Microgrants Team