Part 2: The Racist Roots of NonProfits & Philanthropy w Christina Shimizu LIVE

Episode Notes

PLEASE listen to Part 1, which is S1:E7 which also has really great content! Part 2 is a continuation and includes great citations…here are some links...(and sign up for our mailing list for future updates):

• Michelle talks with Christina Shimizu one of the co-founders of community centric fundraising
• Chrissy work includes Seattle-based organizations like the Wing Luke Museum, Asian Pacific Americans for Civic Empowerment Votes, Chinatown International District Coalition, and she's been working with the Decriminalize Seattle Movement, the Afro-Socialist Defund Seattle Police Campaign. And she's now housed at Puget Sound Sage. 

References: 

• As we talk about inspiration, Chrissy mentions her own influences and specifically names The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, Justice Funders, the now closed Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training, Social Justice Fund, Mijo Lee, Simone and her partner Dae Shik Kim Jr (Sr. Producer @vice/@vicenews on Twitter at @daeshikjr) 
  
   
• She states that the modality we exist within is white-dominant, colonial and neoliberal (we define neoliberalism in Part 1) 
  
   
• We dove right into Andrew Carnegie and his essay The Gospel of Wealth
  Since you are reading the show notes I’ll pull out the quote she uses:

"But whether the law be benign or not, we must say of it, as we say of the change in the conditions of men to which we have referred: It is here; we cannot evade it; no substitutes for it have been found; and while the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department. We accept and welcome therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race."

Okay and here is the old school definition for philanthropy in the same context:

"It is a law, as certain as any of the others named, that men possessed of this peculiar talent for affair, under the free play of economic forces, must, of necessity, soon be in receipt of more revenue than can be judiciously expended upon themselves; and this law is as beneficial for the race as the others."

• She talks about the rise in power of organized labor and mutual aid networks (1870s/1880s) and cites the Haymarket bombing (also called “affair” or “riot”)during the fight for the 10 hour workday
  
   
• Fair Labor Standards Act of (she was right) 1938
  
   
• Berkeley students help us wrap our monkey brains around the concept of a Billion
  
   
• Consider: Philanthropy and nonprofits as: a political system, an economic system, a culturally informed system.
  
   
• We discuss Amazon’s policy to penalize workers if they don’t work fast enough, and connect it to TER’s recent episode feat. Teddy Schleifer and how MacKenzie Scott (was Bezos) can’t give money away fast enough because of her investments (in Amazon and these extractive practices for ex) 
  
   
• Donor Advised Funds. One day I’ll write an article about it but we discuss it here and in S2:E6 with Teddy Schleifer. Very important to learn about if you dunno…
  
   
• Heather Infantry, and the TER episode Disrupting Your Community Foundation was named. She’s a badass and we are so appreciative of her work!
  
   
• "We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable, but then so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words." - Ursula LeGuin
  
   
• Consider: Within our work, who are we investing in? “...when we dig into the actual complexities our communities, our networks will fall apart unless we trust and have genuine relationships with each other outside of work. So, are we investing in that?”
  
   
• Things get heavy here, as we talk about the murder of Seattle resident Charleena Lyles, who was murdered, while pregnant, with three of her children home, by police. What is not covered in reports is the relationship to the nonprofit housing she was living in. 

References from the Q&A:

• Just Transition
• Alaska Native Movement
• Edgar Villanueva and the Decolonizing Wealth Movement

Need to know:

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The Ethical Rainmaker is produced in Seattle, Washington by Isaac Kaplan-Woolner and Kasmira Hall, with socials by Rachelle Pierce. Michelle Shireen Muri is the executive producer and this pod is sponsored by 

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