We are living through an extraordinary resurgence. Across British Columbia, a new generation of Black youth, activists, and professionals is building upon an unbroken lineage of resistance, fusing modern digital tools with ancestral mutual aid, and offering modern iterations of our historical spectrum of giving, in the face of persistent institutional underfunding.
Chantelle Ohrling Archive
Creating abundance in the wake, Part 1: Black philanthropy, memory, and spatial justice in British Columbia
Black philanthropy has never been defined by excess monetary wealth, accumulated capital at the cost of relentless extraction and destruction. It is a spectrum of giving that encompasses the profoundly radical redistribution of anything and everything we have.
No, you can’t decolonize philanthropy, Part 2: But we can fund acts of decolonizing and repair
Decolonization does not have a synonym. It is a very literal refusal and re-creation. It is not a swappable term for improving schools, societies… nor a philanthropic foundation.
No, you can’t decolonize philanthropy, Part 1: A closer look at colonialism and decolonization
…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.
My legacy as a descendant of the Taíno and African peoples who withstood Cristoforo Colombo and his ilk
This is the story of one holiday of many that keeps the room’s colonial mythology alive. In telling it, I hope to help reconstruct the room in truth, so that its warmth no longer depends on exclusion.
Anger is beautiful. Anger is generative. Anger is ancestral.
Righteous rage is the sacred, ancestral fury that knows injustice is not meant to be swallowed but spoken, screamed, sung into being. It is the riot which brings freedom from slavery, fuels the gay-liberation movement, and keeps land and water defenders rallying in the face of police brutality.
Lessons from fungi: Rediscovering the mycorrhizal connections in our communities, philanthropic philosophies, and reciprocal relationships
As we know, ecosystems are a place, but they’re more than that—they’re a carefully calibrated community. Applying this understanding to our sector, we must reject the individualism of white supremacy, opting instead to create an ecosystem of love, accountability, and trust.