What we want, in whatever font: GRP Announces our name Change Process
“You can be what you want, in whatever font.”
-the flaming marshmallows, summer rock camp 2019
“We are strong, we are brave, we can do anything, even if it’s hard.”
-No 2.0, Summer Rock Camp 2019
To our beloved community,
Nearly 15 years ago, Girls Rock Philly was founded to serve girls and women in greater Philadelphia. Since then, GRP’s language and practices have grown to express, center and celebrate the identities of trans and gender-expansive people. Learning to recognize and love our community has brought so much joy to our work; as we’ve reimagined and shifted in service to each other, we’ve been transformed by your magical contributions.
We’ve worked diligently to practice accessibility and equity, to integrate critical feedback, to let go of language and strategies we’ve outgrown, and to find new ways to love the folks that make us who we are. Through our hard work and deep love, GRP continues to become a soft place to land and a safe space to discover the best of ourselves waiting to be known.
As we acknowledge the beauty of this expansion, we strive to be transparent about our limitations and, in 2020, one in particular looms large: For many of our community members, even though our organization reminds us we have a right to take up space, our name itself has felt like a barrier.
GRP has been radically reinventing and redefining itself since we were founded in 2006; now, as we strategize the next 15 years of programming, we’re directing our attention to reimagining from our roots:
In the spirit of our work to build liberatory futures, Girls Rock Philly is initiating a process to change our name.
We hope that, in collaboration with participants, volunteers, caregivers, staff and contributors, we can choose a new name to realign with our mission, and to reimagine the language we use to share our work with the world.
We know better than anyone that finding the words to name ourselves will take time, care and consideration– it’s a process and a practice of deep listening and curiosity. We know that in order to honor our past and lean into the shape of things to come, our full community needs to be a part of this dialogue. In 2021, GRP will take formal steps to develop a collaborative process to reimagine our name; we’re looking for a trusted external facilitator to support this transformation and its challenges.
We’re now accepting proposals from folks within and outside our community to collaborate with us. There’s a link to the job description and request for proposals here. If you’re interested in submitting, we also encourage you to read our mission statement, strategic plan and points of unity to familiarize yourself with our work.
We know that you probably have a lot of questions, so do we! We took some time to think through and respond to a few things that might be on your mind. Read through them here.
We’re excited, we’re curious, we’re here for the grief and the growing pains...and we’re here for you. You can send any questions about the process to namechange@girlsrockphilly.org. We aren’t considering suggestions for a name or feedback until the facilitator and process is in place, so stay tuned for more information; when we begin work in 2021, we’ll review all the feedback we’ve received.