From Trust Fund to Funding Trust
After I graduated from college, I learned I was the owner of a trust fund worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. In June, I made my first gift of $80,000 to a social justice foundation.
Money Stories
How I Facilitated Conversations About Money with My Extended Family
By Margi, RG memberMy Mini Praxis Group with Aunts and Uncles I grew up in an owning-class family and didn’t know it. My parents chose to live their daily lives within the means of their salaries, but subtly used inherited wealth to assist with big expenses like my education and buying our home. I was…
Personal (and Collective) Liberation Through Giving
What guidance would you give to a room full of fundraisers about how to ask you for money? That was the question I tried to answer on a “#RealTalk with Major Donors” panel at the recent Allied Media Conference in Detroit. AMC is a conference led by people of color and queer and trans folks,…
Blog | Money Stories | Navigating Family | Personal Transformation | Stories | Wealth Redistribution in Action
How I Learned to Embrace Family Philanthropy’s Contradictions (And Why This Matters in Today’s Urgent Social Justice Moment)
Act I: Family Philanthropy = Bad? My siblings and I found out that we were on the board of a family foundation six years ago over Christmas dinner. “Surprise! We are now the Pink House Foundation!” my parents announced over root vegetables and waning holiday cheer. (Our house in Northwest Washington, DC was bright pink.)…
The Real Invisible Hand(s)
“If you work hard, people will notice and you will be recognized.” Parts of that tale are true — at least for me as a young person with class privilege and access to wealth. Every week, I churn in a few dozen hours, and twice a month, a paycheck is deposited into my checking account….
Protect Our Communities; Our Planet, Not Private Wealth
This April 29th, I’ll be in Washington D.C. marching alongside frontline communities — those who are being most directly impacted by climate change — for climate, jobs, and justice as part of the People’s Climate Movement. I’m also marching as someone whose family has profited directly off the fossil fuel economy, and has a personal…
Factories and Families – #WhyIMarch
When you open the door the sound pulls you in like an undertow, humming electric and mechanical. Light seeps in through dented and dirty windows high in the metal ceiling. It smells like sweat and burnt plastic; to anyone else, a strange combination, but to me, this was a part of home. Walking through the…
One Wealthy Family’s Immigration Story Told Three Ways
When the Muslim ban was implemented, I was with my family during the Lunar New Year holiday practicing ritual, honoring ancestors, and eating dozens of dumplings. I watched in confusion and horror as the news broke in my family’s living room via Chinese satellite TV, struggling to pick up what was happening. As the hours…
Redistributing Wealth, Land and Power: Leveraging Privilege Towards Collective Liberation
The plenary, Redistributing Wealth, Land and Power: Leveraging Privilege Towards Collective Liberation, from our retreat, Making Money Make Change, is available to listen to on SoundCloud. Listen to it here. Panelists: Dominique Tan (RG member), Margi (RG member), Rye Young (Third Wave), and Braeden Lentz (Solidaire and RG board member). Moderator: Burke Stansbury (Social Justice Fund…
How does one actually redistribute power through philanthropy?
A few years ago, I suddenly found myself feeling utterly stuck. I had been participating in philanthropy with my family for many years, but the weight of this responsibility was starting to get heavy on my shoulders. I had begun to develop progressive politics and deeply wanted to contribute to social justice movements but I…