Rachel D’Souza-Siebert Archive

Stop the sabotage: Why Millennials like us must add chairs at the table for Gen Z

Friends. I am turning 40 this summer. I am milleniOLD. An elder millennial. Some might say a geriatric millennial — which is just rude, y’all. I still feel young, despite listening to chats that my children — both born after 2010 and currently categorized as Gen Alpha —— have songs and trends and technology that I’m completely clueless about.

Sometime in the last decade, I went from being one of the youngest people in the room to one of the oldest. I did not realize this shift had occurred until recently, when I was on a Zoom with a client. During an icebreaker, we all had the chance to share one of our favorite teenage/coming-of-age movies.

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The CCF movement needs YOU!

This summer, we’re planning to transition leadership of Community-Centric Fundraising (CCF) from its co-founders to a CCF Global Council, and we sincerely hope that you will consider applying for this. There are more details about what it all entails, but first, here’s backstory for those of you who like context!

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Listen to the children … (because the world hasn’t ruined them yet)

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in my first decade of parenthood is that I have so much more to learn from my children than they will ever learn from me. They are curious, kind, and optimistic. They feel their feelings in a big way and have not succumbed to shame and self-doubt. They are excellent at speaking their truth and voicing their own needs. They could probably use some work on their boundaries (who needs privacy in the shower, anyway?), but, if there’s any force that can teach us to be the best, most unapologetic versions of ourselves, it is our children.

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White-focused philanthropy is on the way out; a philanthropy that unites us is taking over

Recently, USA Today published an opinion piece titled People-focused philanthropy is on the way out. A philanthropy that divides is taking over, by Elise Westhoff. The basic premise of this article casts a critical eye toward the recent national conversation about community, equity, race, and justice. It suggests that holding space for philanthropy to refresh or reinvent itself in response to current events — or for philanthropy to acknowledge how systems, policy or politics — has had a disparate impact on groups of individuals and causes harm to the donors themselves.

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(Mis)Adventures in fundraising: What you can learn from my first failures in community-centric fundraising

On the first episode of Brené Brown’s Unlocking Us podcast, Brené Brown shares her concept of “Effing First Times”or “FFTs” as she calls them. FFTs are a recognition of the difficulty at being new, let alone good, at just about anything.

“When we have no relevant experiences or expertise, the vulnerability, uncertainty and fear of these firsts can be overwhelming,” she said. “Yet, showing up and pushing ourselves past the awkward learner stage is how we get braver.”

I long for 2018-me to have had access to this framing. I had just begun (intentionally) integrating justice, equity, and belonging into my development practice. As the founder of a boutique consultancy, I committed myself to the trials of novelty, knowing that more than once, I would — inevitably — fall on my face. But, I hoped (maybe knew?) the reward would outweigh the risk. I was open to experiencing and learning from failure.

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“What are you again?” (Not your token Brown friend, that’s for sure!)

My parents immigrated to the United States from India in the 1970s and chose to purchase their first home in a suburban municipality west of St. Louis, Missouri. To both the south and west of our subdivision were mostly white communities — to the north and east, mostly Black and immigrant Asian and Pacific Islander communities. If you’ve learned anything about St. Louis in the six years since Mike Brown’s murder, you are familiar with the deep segregation of our region and its toxic, implicit commitment to the Black-white binary.

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