At Propeller, giving back to the community is a meaningful part of our culture. Through our Uplift program, we leverage the business acumen of our consultants to support the needs of nonprofit organizations. Our goal is to make a lasting impact and uplift nonprofit partners through strategy, professional development, or direct service.

Check out our other featured partners in the Uplift Community Partner Series.

As we approach the end of the year, a time many of us focus on giving, we reached out to some of our Uplift partners to learn more about their mission, and what seasonal giving means to them. Today we’re featuring our conversation with Ash Lynette, senior resource organizer, at Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. 

Q: Can you tell us about the mission of the Ella Baker Center and your role within the organization?

The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights (EBC) is named after Ella Baker, a brilliant, Black hero of the civil rights movement. Following in her footsteps, we organize with Black, Brown, and low-income people to shift resources away from prisons and punishment, and towards opportunities that make our communities safe, healthy, and strong. For twenty-five years, we’ve been working to advance people-powered campaigns for racial and economic justice. 

In my role as Senior Resource Organizer, I get to collaborate with our supporters and shift the way we “do” fundraising away from a traditional extractive model, and towards a transformational model that acknowledges that when we organize with people as their full selves, we can build a sustainable movement that brings us all closer to collective liberation, together. 

Q. We’d love to hear about a program you’re particularly proud of.

I genuinely appreciate all of our program areas – we organize local and statewide here in California, and national levels, to ensure that we are applying strategic pressure on a variety of stages.

That being said, I’m super proud of our team for launching the Inside/Outside Policy Fellowship this year. The Inside/Outside Fellowship is a new dual fellowship program designed to increase contributions to the Ella Baker Center’s policy work by people who are directly impacted by the policies we are advocating to change. It’s also an opportunity for directly impacted people to learn more about the criminal justice movement and the process for changing policies, while also receiving payment for their contributions and labor. 

You can learn more about the fellowship here.

Q: Can you tell us the impact of seasonal giving has for EBC?

Yes, I love this question! This is the Ella Baker Center’s 25th anniversary, and we are hoping to raise an ambitious $2M from individual donors to sustain our movement for years to come. 

Meeting this goal would mean we can continue to be bold and fearless in our advocacy, to try new strategies in tandem with those that are tried and true. When you give this season, you are enabling our team to move forward with confidence and creativity. We are up against the most well-funded structures – police and prisons – and in this political moment, we have the opportunity to push the movement forward in unprecedented ways. 

Q: Anything else you think our readers should know?

There are many ways to throw down in the movement, so don’t be shy! Please feel free to reach out any time at [email protected] and we can connect you with volunteer opportunities that match your interests and strengths.

Thank you again! We appreciate the meaningful work the Ella Baker Center does and we’re proud to partner with you through our Uplift program.

About Uplift

At Propeller, giving back to the community is a meaningful part of our culture. Through our Propeller Uplift program, we leverage the business acumen of our consultants to support the needs of nonprofit partner organizations. Our goal is to make a lasting impact and uplift organizations through strategy, professional development, or direct service.

Serving our local communities has been a focus since Propeller started in 2012. What started as a small group of enthusiastic founding members with a vision for our firm’s community involvement has evolved into an established and award-winning team program.