The recent arrest of three bail fund organizers in Atlanta reminds us that opposing the carceral state is not easy. But retreat is not an option.

Protecting mutual aid requires building trust, accountability, and solidarity across organizations, regardless of legal status. In the movement for liberation, finding a way forward is critical, and in that spirit, here are a few recommendations:

• Make clear assessments about the intentions, opportunities, and risks of our in the context of our broader movement goals. If a mutual aid fund operates with a nonprofit structure, does it know why? For how long? To what end? There are many options for handling money as a mutual aid group, and there are just as many questions to be asked about the extent to which a group wants to partner with 501(c)(3) charities and/or foundations.
• Build out grassroots donors and a dues-paying membership base. In 2013, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project released From the Bottom Up: Strategies for Membership-Based Organizations, which makes the compelling case for how instituting a sliding-scale dues structure supports grassroots fundraising, increases “members’ investment in the work,” reduces the likelihood of philanthropic co-optation, and builds leadership skills. And in the Northeast, the Resource Organizing Project offers yearlong cohorts for grassroots organizations to grow grassroots donors while transforming fundraising to be a “form of organizing, power-building, and healing.”
• Bet on and invest in the grassroots by taking risks to move money in ways more aligned with grassroots needs than with institutional convenience. For example, our worker self-directed nonprofit, New Economy Coalition, created the Black Solidarity Economy Fund, which democratically regrants funds to non-501(c)(3) organizers and worker cooperatives. The fund is an intentional, member-led effort to garner unrestricted resources and recruit new members into our coalition from all over the movement.

• Forge a strong defense against both legal and physical attacks on radical solidarity funds in this new political moment of surveillance and repression. The tactics for doing this will depend on the situation. Sometimes, decentralized organizations can help ensure that movements are less vulnerable to repression. Sometimes this might mean supporting parallel underground organizations that are less visible to outside authorities.