Essay Archives

White people: We need to do more than just ‘leverage whiteness’ to dismantle white supremacy!

I have been working to raise funds for nonprofits for almost twelve years. The majority of that time has been spent raising money for public schools in New Orleans, Louisiana. I’ve bounced around to several organizations over the years, never spending more than three years at any one place because I couldn’t put up with staying longer than that.

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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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Nonprofits can’t engage in political advocacy at all, you say? Wrong. We can and we must.

When Trump was elected in 2016, I was a director of development in New York City. The day after the election, as I sat on my couch at home in a shroud of depression, I sent a communique out to my organization’s full email list, calling for cohesion, mutual support, and compassionate attention to the Black, Brown, and immigrant youth that the organization worked to support.

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We’re breaking up: And it’s not me, Philanthropy — it’s you.

Hi, Philanthropy! You don’t recognize me, because you never see me, but I write a lot of the proposals you read. I don’t normally call attention to myself, but I’m here, and I need to tell you that I’m exhausted. In truth, I’ve been burnt out for years. While I find satisfaction in working for great causes, organizations, and communities, working with you wears me down bit by bit.

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Looking behind the curtain: How anonymous giving can uphold white supremacy

In annual reports and donor lists around the country, there’s always a section for anonymous giving. It’s accepted as a norm in the fundraising world that some donors elect to be anonymous for one reason or another. The Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) outlines confidentiality as a right in The Donor Bill of Rights. However, recent scandals in the past year surrounding anonymous gifts raises the question whether anonymous giving helps or hurts the work of philanthropy to create a more equitable and just world.

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Curb cuts and universal design: How I use my invisible disability to advocate for arts accessibility

My journey to accessibility in the arts started more than 20 years ago, when I first moved to Seattle from the East Coast. While in Los Angeles on vacation, I went to see “Titanic,” which had just come out in movie theaters. For the first time, I used a captioning device that fit into the cup holder of my seat, allowing me to read the words being spoken onscreen. It was exhilarating: I was finally able to fully understand the dialogue on the big screen.

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#NonprofitKarens: What they look like and how you can spot one!

By now, most, if not all of us, are aware of the many Karens of the world. If you are unsure about your neighborhood Karen she is the lady who is the first person to insert herself in a situation that has nothing to do with her. She can be seen calling the manager — (cue the infamous Karen meme). We have seen Karens show up in many spaces and continue to be problematic.

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5 reasons your development planning sucks

When I first read about community-centric fundraising via Vu Le’s Nonprofit AF blog, a lightbulb went off in my head. Everything that felt icky to me about donor-centric practices was articulated. Once I started seeing more articles like this, I knew I was on the right track with shifting the narrative at my own organizations.

So, why does your development planning suck?

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