By Yura Sapi, fundraiser in Latin America

Operating from a scarcity mindset can play out in many ways… It’s when the solutions to problems center money or another material good as the only answer and not having it as the problem.

A few years ago, I started looking for more answers to the question, “How do we collectively shift from scarcity to abundance?” After living in Latin America over the years, specifically in Nuquí, Chocó, Colombia for the past year, I’ve experienced a much deeper understanding as to what abundance is, and what an abundance mindset can be. I think the answers parallel many of the solutions we are yearning for to end racism and capitalism, which has harmed and continues to harm the majority of the world. 

I aim to communicate my experience as much as I can, but you also must know this is beyond what the English language and a singular publication can communicate. I hope you will join me and we can continue this work together.

Operating from a scarcity mindset can play out in many ways. In the nonprofit sector, for example, it can show up when we view other organizations as our competition rather than our fellow team members. On a personal level, I know I experience falling into a scarcity mindset as a moment of extreme stress and anxiety that can be felt in the body. It’s when I’m centering having or raising money as success. It’s when the solutions to problems center money or another material good as the only answer and not having it as the problem. 

Montañita, of the Decolonize Un-Conference, has spoken about the “American way of throwing money at the problem.” I think it’s true! Having been born and raised in the United States gave me a specific upbringing and set of white supremacist capitalist values that I will be working to unlearn for the rest of my life. 

Black, lesbian feminist, mother, warrior, and poet Audre Lorde wrote, “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of support.” So if our source of support doesn’t come from the “master’s house,” from racism, from capitalism, from the United States, where does it come from? I offer that we turn to Nature, or Earth. 

1. What Nature teaches us — the ebb and flow of abundance

Sometimes when there is an abundance of one thing, we appreciate it, we save it… And when we don’t have it, it’s not a bad thing. It’s time for something else.

White supremacy culture urges us to view things in binary ways. Abundance, good. Scarcity, bad. Yet, Nature is calling on us to look at things in a different way.

Just like Earth provides us with everything, Earth also teaches us a lesson through the natural waves of scarcity and abundance — that abundance and scarcity are not a positive and negative situation. For instance, think of the way our (past, present and future) ancestors and indigenous agricultural communities grow food. What is abundant in one harvest may not be so until the next. And what was once scarce may again lead to abundance in the future or lead to an abundance of something else. 

Respecting the natural cycles is part of being in just exchange — a reciprocal giving and receiving that is rooted in being equitable and fair — with Earth. Sometimes when there is an abundance of one thing, we appreciate it, we save it. We learn about ways to preserve different foods so we have it for times when it’s not around. And when we don’t have it, it’s not a bad thing. It’s time for something else.

Negative scarcity is felt when one thing is valued and another is not.

For example, living in Nuquí, there are times when I don’t have access to internet or cell service, but I know when this happens, another opportunity emerges for me to connect with people in a different way. I spend time with my apothecary, I read books, I write, I meditate. The disconnect from technology is essential for my mental health. A shift in perspective is often being called for in moments of negative scarcity mindset. These are messages the universe sends us to help us along our path. 

Another example from the nonprofit world: I’m currently in the process of incorporating a new 501c3 organization to process donations from the U.S. for folks across Latin America. Sometimes I find myself in a negative scarcity mindset, because it would be great to already have everything established. And so, the abundance we have is in the opportunity to build from scratch. We get to put in place the practices and policies like making sure board members, existing donors, and new donors are not getting their money from fossil fuels. Since our communities are directly suffering from oil and gas impacts where this money comes from, we don’t want to be giving them a social license to operate by receiving their money. What an opportunity for our movement! And check out the pledge for #FossilFreeCulture. 

2. Think beyond money

I invite us to think beyond money, dollars, euros, pesos, pounds… Desiring money or material wealth and mistakenly conflating it with abundance is the work of capitalism.

As a U.S. American born-and-raised-in-capitalism individual, I’m still learning the huge lesson that abundance is not just about money or material wealth. And that in fact, abundance is not money or material wealth at all. (I know that in many other colonized fundraising spaces, it is almost impossible to have this conversation.) 

I have experienced how money is not abundance — mostly because money is not real. In Decolonizing Wealth, Edgar Villanueva wrote, “Materially, it’s a bit of nickel, zinc, copper. It’s a little linen, mostly cotton, some ink. It’s basically a Kleenex adorned with dead presidents. Actually today mostly it’s a series of zeros and ones. Bytes, data on screens. Imaginary. Harmless.” 

I have been in situations where having zeros and ones on screens doesn’t mean there is access to food — and situations where having the cash, doesn’t mean there is someone who can offer the support one needs. These things are not abundance.  

I have and continue to organize fundraisers for different community groups across Latin America. As fundraisers, we know fundraising is important, but it’s been more important for me to understand that raising more money will not solve the problems we’re facing. Villanueva has said, “Money is a proxy for the sweat we spend on growing food, sewing clothes, assembling electronics, coding apps, creating entertainment, researching and developing innovations, and so on. It’s just a stand-in for the materials used, the services granted, the responsibility shouldered. Money is a tool to reflect the obligations to each other that people develop as they interact.” 

I invite us to think beyond money, dollars, euros, pesos, pounds. Because, ultimately, what we’re fundraising for is about the exchange — the sweat we expend and the responsibility shouldered. Desiring money or material wealth and mistakenly conflating it with abundance is the work of capitalism.

Money won’t solve racism. No amount of money gathered can pay to repair, heal, and transform the world we inherited. 

We need to think beyond money. We need to think more about the changes needed of the systems and our just exchanges in community.

Montañita has said, “Capitalism shows in your activism when you’re more concerned about reaching numbers than reaching people deeply as an individual.”

3. Just exchange through mano cambiadas

Just exchange through mano cambiadas, used as an antidote to a negative scarcity mindset, welcomes an abundance and scarcity beyond a positive and negative duality. It is about identifying all that we have, all we are grateful for, and partnering with others who need what we have and have what we need.

Since living in Latin America, I have been trading and exchanging with trueques and mano cambiadas as well as learning and observing from others who do even more. I had been interested in looking into different forms of currency and systems to put in place before and especially at the start of the COVID pandemic. I participated in an online guided discussion at metaDEN — A healing incubator for and by Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, and other people of color. During the discussion, artist and activist, Jonathan Gonzalez, shared resources from a community of mostly New York-based folks with examples of other money systems from people organizing in Latin America and Africa. I talked to friends from Venezuela about their experience. Then moving to Nuqui, I was able to truly experience and start living these types of ancestral systems. More and more I am able to forgo using Colombian pesos, or American dollars, or crypto currency. For example, I exchanged my Spanish to English translation services with a design agency for the creation of a marketing brochure. A friend helped us with the manual labor of building our boat and now we are helping him with the manual labor of building his house. 

I think it would mean a lot for our communities if we could de-center money and re-center the exchange between people. 

In order to do this, the “just” part of “just exchange” is super important. Just exchanges are experienced through the duality and overlap of valuing myself and valuing others whether we’re exchanging money or not. Especially for us folks of the global majority, whose ancestors are from communities still globally marginalized. Let us value our work, our time, our energy, our bodies. And at the same time, let us value those who surround us, those who support us, and are our community. 

Lauren Turner, co-founder of No Dream Deferred NOLA speaks about this on my podcast Building Our Own Tables. She speaks about No Dream Deferred NOLA’s organizational structure that is built on their value to model equitable pay for the artists that work together. Lauren says someone told her, “I can do that for y’all for free.” She responded, “Actually, we can’t.” One of her team members asked why they should turn down this free offering. She responded that “when it comes to paying Black, or Indigenous, or people of color, No Dream Deferred has to model it. If we’re demanding it of the world, we want to show people it’s possible. We want to show people that this is a space where your worth is recognized at all times.”

I think of the community-centric fundraising principle #4, All who engage in strengthening the community are equally valued, whether volunteer, staff, donor, or board member. It’s about not asking or allowing our loved ones, those closest to us, to offer their work for nothing in return. There is always something to return. 

Just exchange through mano cambiadas, used as an antidote to a negative scarcity mindset, welcomes an abundance and scarcity beyond a positive and negative duality. It is about identifying all that we have, all we are grateful for, and partnering with others who need what we have and have what we need.

4. What Nature teaches us — gratitude 

Abundance comes from Earth, what Earth provides us, and our just exchange with the land and its beings, a reciprocal giving and receiving rooted in equity and fairness.

Abundance is beyond material wealth. You can feel it when you step into majestic nature. It’s a state of utter gratitude and respect, of feeling full with all that Earth has to offer us. In her book, Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer introduced me to the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address. She shares about the impact on young leaders at an Onondaga Nation school that begins and ends not with the Pledge of Allegiance, but with the Thanksgiving Address. She says, “You can’t listen to the Thanksgiving Address without feeling wealthy,” and “Gratitude cultivates an ethic of fullness, but the economy needs emptiness. The Thanksgiving Address reminds you that you already have everything you need. Gratitude doesn’t send you out shopping to find satisfaction; it comes as a gift rather than a commodity, subverting the foundation of the whole economy. That’s good medicine for land and people alike.” 

Abundance comes from Earth, what Earth provides us, and our just exchange with the land and its beings, a reciprocal giving and receiving rooted in equity and fairness. Having a place to grow in all aspects of the word, that is abundance. Earth provides us with everything we need because we belong to Earth.  

Another way to feel this is to breathe. Try taking 10 deep breaths inhaling and exhaling with intention. Our body needs air to function. 

When I find myself in capitalism-induced scarcity-mindset spirals, I realize I’m holding my breath, causing my body systems to not get the resources they need to function properly. I hold so much gratitude to my breath and the air we breathe. The way in which our breath plays a role in exchanging with plants, giving them the air they need. We’re all connected.

To close this offering, I want to share from México and Oaxaca-based collective, Cooperativo Cráter Invertido in their book, Plantas Curativas (Healing Plants), where they recommend toronjil (lemon balm) infusions as plant healing support specifically touching on the connection between capitalism (and racism) and the stress it causes us: “El capitalismo nos estresa, nos orilla a emociones que entristecen… Es posible salir solas de la ansiedad, pero hacerlo en manada podría ser más fácil.” My translation → “Capitalism stresses us, leads us to emotions that make us sad… It is possible to get out of anxiety alone, but doing it in a herd could be easier.” Hello, CCF herd! 

So, how does shifting your mindset from scarcity to abundance show up for you? How does it translate for you in your workspace? I’d love to know in the comments.