On May 1, 2026, thousands of workers across California took to the streets. Domestic workers, union members, student organizers, families, and neighbors. People who know they need each other.
They know what we know. As the great Audre Lorde said, “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”
Nowhere is this more present than at a protest where a mother, pushing her child in a stroller, marches alongside a group of teens with hand-painted signs, next to an organizer who has been doing this work for decades, standing shoulder to shoulder with neighbors, friends, family, and coworkers.
Because we trust that when the lives of our loved ones are better, when the lives of our neighbors are better, when the lives of every Californian is better, then we will be better.
Some may call a protest a simple performance. But what we at Women’s Foundation California see is a statement of values, a statement of solidarity. It is this interdependent solidarity that philanthropy must understand, especially now.