Strategic Giving and People of Color: Rethinking Our Relationship to Money

Being a part of Social Justice Fund’s “Strategic Giving for People of Color” workshop this past April has renewed my hope in social change work. Spending one and a half days with a roomful of diverse yet like-minded donors was a powerful experience, not only because we were all people of color, but because we were, in my mind, recreating our relationship to capitalism.

I didn't really know what to expect, so I went in it very open minded – ready to interact and learn. I often long for places and spaces where we can do hard thinking in a fun atmosphere, and this workshop certainly fulfilled this.

The workshop was mostly small group work. That, along with chatting on breaks, helped me connect with others. On several occasions, we went around the room hearing everyone's experience or an answer to a particular question. It was incredibly powerful to hear participants’ sense of themselves and their commitments.

In our “tree of life” exercise, we took time to formulate what our sense of family, community, and priorities are, and where all these ideas came from. For me, this exercise helped me link up my thoughts on capitalism because I more fully realized the historical roots of social change work (through our own personal stories), and that capitalism and other systems of power rely on these personal histories being suppressed or forgotten.

It seems to me that modern-day capitalism is intimately tied to social change because they are fundamentally antithetical to the other. For capitalism to succeed, there must be individual and social inequality, greed, excess, and unchecked consumerism. Progressive social change, on the other hand, measures its successes on individual and social equality, generosity, empathy and wealth redistribution. People of color conscientiously meeting to deepen our understanding of and commitment to social change philanthropy is not only radical and empowering in and of itself, it seems downright revolutionary.

My challenge as a progressive philanthropist committed to social change is how to do this authentically while simultaneously living and working in a capitalist system. I wonder how I might reconcile these two often conflicting realities of my life in a way that leaves me empowered and able to work for justice, and still able to buy the occasional pair of cute shoes… I joke a bit, but only mildly.

This workshop furthered my thinking on these issues, helped me connect myself to a community of progressive donors actively engaging with important issues, and showed me once again the strength of our dollars, our voices, and collective vision.