…the terms “decolonization” and “decolonizing” continue to rise into the mainstream of the nonprofit sector, yet their meaning is often diluted into a soft synonym for inclusion or diversity. As if we could simply sprinkle a bit of our colour and culture onto the white walls of charities and foundations and call it liberation.
Essay Archives
A joint statement on proposed changes to SAM.gov registration
SAM.gov is not a policy debate. It is not a grant application. It is the door. And this administration wants to put a political test in front of it.Why CCF Family Reunion is different from other conferences: Centering BIPOC leadership and lived wisdom is non-negotiable
Now is the time for planning that guides us to step into our power
If all we do is resist and react in this moment, without also working to create what is possible, we are dooming ourselves to playing defense in perpetuity.
Fear, immigration policy, and the nonprofit sector
Many nonprofit professionals are immigrants, children of immigrants, or individuals whose identities are deeply shaped by histories of migration and resilience. We carry with us an innate understanding of how immigration policy affects real families, but we also understand fear.
Understanding community and local voices is your strength when communicating for development
But here’s what no one tells you: navigating the technical side of the job is just one part of it. The harder part is managing the invisible expectations that come with being a person of color working in development, often under white, Western leadership.
Why CCF Family Reunion is different from other conferences: It’s about relationship, not just content.
Trauma-informed fundraising: Why urgency without care is costing us trust
Trauma-informed fundraising does not mean avoiding urgency or sanitizing injustice. It means refusing to use pain as a shortcut.
Q: Why do nonprofits struggle to achieve their missions? A: Colonialism
Given my learnings, I identified a key thing holding nonprofits back from achieving their missions and advancing progressive change: their complicity in colonial mindsets.
To the young, the less young, and the still-here fundraiser
The field often mistakes how much harm fundraisers can absorb for how good they are at relationship-building. We praise the ability to absorb discomfort, translate harm, and stay pleasant under pressure, and call it ‘professionalism.’
When responsibility is individual rather than systemic: CCF’s unfinished work
If CCF stops at perfecting individual ethics while systemic harm continues untouched, we’ve accomplished what the recycling movement did before governments intervened: we’ve made people feel better about participating in a fundamentally unjust system.
A personal reflection on the US Refugee Admissions Program
Bureaucracy has faces. A long time ago, in a past life it seems, it wore mine. I was a refugee resettlement officer on the continent of Africa, straddling nonprofit immigration work and public service.