Mala Nagarajan

Mala Nagarajan’s parents give her hope the world can change. In the mid-1960’s, they immigrated to the United States from India, bringing traditional Indian, Hindu, Brahmin values and their dreams of providing sufficient dowries for their three daughters’ arranged marriages.

Twenty-five years ago, her father exiled his oldest daughter when he disapproved of her marriage. Today he condemns conservative forces who try to legislate against his lesbian daughter and Vega, her wife. Her mother’s journey has been equally significant. Overcoming her deafness and emerging from many years of isolation and depression, Mala’s mother has become strong mother figure and assumed a central role in the family decisions. From lecturing about traditional Indian kolams in one daughter’s religious studies course to marching in the local gay pride parade as a proud mother of a lesbian daughter, she has adapted her traditions to a radically different cultural context. Her parents, informally and unintentionally, have come to counsel other Indian parents whose children are LGBTIQ.

To Mala, her parents’ transformation from society’s gatekeepers to society’s gate openers demonstrates the importance of taking a long-term perspective on social change and meeting people where they are instead of where you are. It’s this same long-term perspective that prompted Mala to join SJF with her partner in 2005.

Before she joined as a member, Mala had heard about Social Justice Fund (then known as A Territory Resource), but had never seen it as a place for her. Her first interaction with ATR was in 1995 as a board member of the Seattle chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgenders (PFLAG). A fellow board member was on staff at SJF and introduced her to the organization. At the time it seemed like a “rich, white organization” with a great mission. She thought ATR was cool, but hadn’t connected the dots yet to see how it fit with her social change work.

Over several years Mala was friends with SJF staff members, involved with various community organizations that received grants from SJF, and hosted out-of-state SJF members and grantees in her home. When the membership rate changed to $20 a month, Mala and Vega became members.

There are several elements of SJF that Mala finds especially compelling. “A lot of organizations doing social change are trying to do it quickly. They don’t get the idea of long-term investment and risk.” As Mala has gotten to know the organization she sees it and its grantees taking the long-term view of social change. She wants to see this cutting-edge work continue.

The integral connectedness of members’ involvement is also key to Mala’s support of SJF. She likes that SJF is working to engage members and get them involved in the work. The organization also has a member education component to its work, which Mala thinks is unusual. In her experience, organizations assume members are already on board, but everyone has their blind spots. “To have an organization say to its members ‘You all are touching the elephant in different places, and we want you to know the elephant as a whole’ is an important role to play.”

Mala is the founder of Creative Collaborations, a nonprofit building organizational capacity through cross-sector strategies, collaboration, and resource sharing. Mala integrates the Social Justice Fund philosophy that we all have an impact on social change into her work with organizations at various stages on the "continuum of progress."