Facebook Publication Date: 11/27/2018 10:11

Another word about fundraising:

A few actually.

We have to really walk back from this faux ‘virtue’ of only giving to people/orgs the establishment feels are worthy.

Most of you who see this either work in or are aware of the spaces that we outside the ‘domesticated Left’ inhabit.

Let’s be clear. Most of the work over the last 6 decades or so that have had catalyzing impact for sustainable and durable social change have been outside the usual channels. Eventually, more mainstream outlets pick up the charge, dilute it to a strength they think the masses can tolerate, and there you get your incremental change.

For those whose activism does not take well to dilution; for those of us who lead full strength lives, and require no tonic water, those are the ones who ask the questions, who shout outside the gates, who will never see the King’s table, much less fight over the scraps on the floor (for that is what Giving Tuesday is), those people and orgs are the ones who are ‘too much’; ‘divisive’; ‘unwilling to cooperate or compromise’.

I thank Gd for them. The revolution was not funded by Fortune 500 companies, but rather by regular people giving sacrificially, without thought of tax writeoffs or metrics.

I thank Gd for the people using their own cars and gas who assisted with the Bus Strike in the 50’s.

I thank Gd for the struggle at the border, where it is us helping the stranger without thought.

Reflective giving, to our shared community, when there is a need, not just when FB tells you to.

Which brings us to two other points. Corporate philanthropy has its place, but often they get the kudos when it is just pass through–except for today, for a limited numbers of orgs, how many of them match? I always ask that when i am asked at point of sale if i want to donate funds. I always get a ‘no’.

And even then, the funds go to the ‘safest’ charities. This has an effect.

If orgs are limiting their scope and their mission so they can have the approbation of corporations, that is concerning. If they are not speaking truth to power because they will lose a matching fund or a grant, they are working in aggrandizement to the structure of the org, not the people they say they serve and walk with.

Bluntly put, Lace on Race will probably never win a grant; never get matching funds. Because we insist on full strength living.

I shudder to think of the kind of ‘racial equity’ work that would get me invited to the boardrooms and training rooms of FB or Amazon, or HP or Walmart. If I was invited once, there wouldn’t be a second time.

This is about the difference between nibbling at the edges of the crappy cookie, and going right to the fudgy center, exposing root causes, refusing platitudes, standing ground.

Lace on Race lives in the fudgy center. So do many other orgs you will never see if you only follow the directions of the corporation.

Do you really think they would be willing to fund orgs that directly and insistently challenge them? Do you really think they will cotton to funding authentic change to the social order that allows them to exist?

They are hoping we won’t ask those questions. But we must.

Support Lace on Race. (This is not a fundraising appeal. But we do good work. Consider us.)

And at the same time, do your own work (h/t Deb Isanhart) and find orgs worthy and willing to fight for the change we say we all want to see, and walk with them too.

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