About the Convening
We’ve made the case for equitable grantmaking for years. Now is the moment when we push forward, put our ideas into practice, and make progress.
GSP’s 2023 Biennial Convening: The Forward Moment will take place August 30 – September 1, 2023 in Orlando, Florida. Our programming centers on four key focus areas: Climate, LGBTQ+, Immigrant, and Criminal Justice. Our goal is to offer a space for our network to better understand the South, its tradition of resistance, and to move resources into the communities that need them most. We will also host our annual membership meeting and a Learning Tour of local partners working to build power in the greater Orlando area.
What You Can Expect
The Forward Moment offers an array of sessions, skills labs, celebratory events, and learning tours aimed at educating participants about the cultural, geographic, and political context of the South while grounding our learnings in central Florida. We are finalizing our agenda and will provide updates soon. In the meantime, check out our session descriptions below:
Session Descriptions
Reformation and Abolition: Building a Collective Vision
How do we move away from punishment towards justice within the criminal-legal system? Expand
Disenfranchisement and Criminalization: Tools for Voter Suppression
In the last two years, more than 130 bills have been introduced across the nation that would increase the involvement of law enforcement in the voting process. Expand
Centering Black, Brown, & Indigenous Communities: Building Community Resilience Against Climate and Environmental Warfare
Explore the long history of environmental and climate-based warfare against communities of color and its impacts on their health, wealth, and resiliency. Expand
Investing in the Infrastructure of Climate Justice: The Long-Term Strategy
The persistent rhetoric of our current political climate seems to fall on the extreme sides of a spectrum, with climate change denial on one end and the fear that we are doomed and beyond saving on the other. Expand
Safety & Security: Building a Collective Strategy for Supporting Undocumented Organizers and Community Groups
In the face of a sunsetting DACA policy and newly introduced asylum bans, we must ask: who is keeping immigrant communities safe? The answer is: each other. Expand
Funding and Organizing for Immigrant Justice Beyond the Border States
In recent years, we’ve seen immigrant communities in border states infiltrated and separated by ICE, but they were not the exception. Expand
Meeting the Moment of anti-LGBTQ+ Legislation: Progressive Organizing and Advocacy Strategies
We envision a South where every LGBTQ+ person can thrive, with full lived and legal equality. Expand
The Inherent Queerness of Southern Movement Work
Queer and trans leaders are on the front lines of every facet of social justice work in the South, especially queer leaders of color. Expand