GV in October: getting ready to nest
It's autumn! Crisp air and cozy sweaters. Listening to this song a lot.
I'm listening to: Intocable's Modus Operandi. My brother James and I got to see these guys play on their 30th anniversary tour and it was unbelievable. They're a six-piece (accordion, two six-string guitars, a drummer, a bassist, and a percussionist who spent just as much time skillfully playing conga as he did tracing a heart shape over his chest whenever the band sang the word "corazón." I fell in love with him immediately.) and they play incredible, cinematic, lovely music. Not a single word of English was spoken or sang (sung?), and the whole crowd knew every. single. word. Everyone (us included) was wearing cowboy boots and fringe. The whole place felt so full of love and joy and sorrow, all mixed up together.
I'm reading: Last month I was hoping to jump into David Bellos and Alexandre Motagu's Who Owns This Sentence? A history of copyrights and wrongs, and I have! Like I mentioned in September's newsletter, ownership is a bonkers concept, especially when it comes to ideas. I have such a hard time thinking through my own approach to 'intellectual property.' Super interested in how others think about this - especially those of you who exist in both the "I work for myself and need to be recognized for my efforts in order to get paid" and "I think everyone should share most things/we all belong to each other" worlds.
UPDATES
It's almost here! Generosity Xchange is next week on October 16 & 17! It's virtual! It's free! Take a peek at the agenda and register for free. I posted about the other sessions that I'm especially excited about here. (I'll be talking about values-aligned data & tech on the Main Stage on October 17 at 2:15p CST.)
Unless something comes up at the last minute, I don't have any more events in 2024! I'll be starting my annual hunker-down. I'm shifting to my autumnal animal activities - nesting, learning, breathing, and gathering soft, warm items to lay on/under.
LEARNING
LEARNING ABOUT MYSELF
I'm realizing that I really enjoy speaking! (turns out this is more surprising to me that anyone close to me, ha!) So I’m saying out loud: get at me for speaking requests please and thank you!
please hire me to show you photos of bugs and yell… (ft. Annie Zhou, Sr. Consultant @ TCC Group, Jenn Dickinson, Grants Director @ Helmsley, and Jeannine Corey, Founder of Philanthropy.io)
...or to do whatever this is. (ft. Annie Rhodes, Chief Strategy Officer @ Fluxx, Victoria Vrana, Chief Executive Officer @ GlobalGiving, and Ori Carmel, CEO/Founder of Sowen) Thanks to Shawn Garrison @ Fluxx for the top photo and to Sophie Blondeau @ Sowen for the bottom photo!
LEARNING ABOUT THE WORK - IT’S WORKING!
I've been working with a funding organization for a few years—they first got in touch with me to see if I could help them choose a database for their impact measurement. I said "Not yet, but I'd like to help you think through the why of your data. Then we can talk about the how/where of your data." This was a risk—their board was hungry for data and dashboards and graphs—but they didn't have a whole lot of clarity around why they wanted those things. We had to uncover some core assumptions about the work and the community. When we started this work, the board threw around phrases like, "everyone in the community is coming to us for a handout" and they were rating potential grantees' proposals based on grammar and punctuation.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, these same folks are taking a holistic and compassionate approach to grant-making and capacity building. They're embarking on their first year-long collaborative data and measurement design work with a cohort of grantees across their community.
I REALLY hoped this is where we'd end up, but I wasn't sure that we would! I knew I was taking a risk by inviting folks to focusing on shame, power, and feelings before getting to the data. Especially for this length of time. I'm happy to report that we've kicked off the tactical data work, and things are going well - we've built our foundation and our trust (our emotional roadmap - IYKYK), and we know how to care for each other as we do this work.
It’s important for me to name that this isn’t a “me” success - it’s all of us! staff, leadership, board - we stayed curious and really dug in, and now we’re here! I'm feeling grateful and inspired by these folks. I love my clients so much. One day I'll get around to writing a case study, but for now, this will have to do.
LEARNING & THINKING ABOUT WHAT WE DON’T SAY IN CERTAIN ROOMS
Fluxx's FluxxCon24 was a blast (see photographic evidence above). I'm so grateful to the organizers, speakers, and the folks with whom I got to share space and learnings. I already shared a few of my reflections, but I have more! During a keynote panel, I had an opportunity to name a few things, so I did! Here are the highlights:
American Philanthropy is rooted in land theft, genocide, and enslavement - all acts committed in service of white supremacy and racial capitalism (I learned this term by reading Cedric J. Robinson's Black Marxism and Ruth Wilson Gilmore's Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation).
It's not just "the bad guys in the shadows" who can do harm with the data we collect - all of us are capable of causing harm, and we've got some work to do on our collective accountability practices!
The continued rise of fascism and authoritarianism is a massive threat to our work and the communities we claim to work with and for.
After that session, I got (mostly) positive feedback - but the majority of it was communicated in hushed tones and out of earshot of other attendees. Folks shared that the session was "refreshing" and that "we don't talk about this stuff enough." There were some folks who brought this up in their questions to panelists or during their own sessions (👀 Aleda Gagarin), which was lovely and heartening, but I was struck by just how quietly folks were saying "we should say this louder." What might happen if more of us said these things in more rooms and at a louder volume? What might it take for folks to feel like they can turn up the volume? I don't think that what I said was all that radical or earth-shaking - can we lift the bar a bit here?
As I reflect on this, I'm feeling grateful for the opportunities I've had to continue my political education. I've learned that when my understanding of these issues is rooted in historical context and analyses of power, I'm way less worried about ruffling feathers or offending folks. I'm not saying "some people are mean and some people are not." I'm not saying "we should all get along." I'm also not saying "I'm a good person and y'all are not." I'm saying: we are all subject to an incredibly violent system. We all participate in this system to varying degrees, and we cannot divorce the history (and therefore current state) of philanthropy from these systems. I think it's irresponsible for us to talk about "driving philanthropy forward" without addressing these issues. I didn't always feel comfortable in these conversations! I used to wring my hands and I used to subscribe to white feminism and respectability politics. (And I likely still do - more behaviors and biases still to be discovered and unlearned!) ...all of this is to say that I wouldn't be nearly as comfortable as I am in these conversations without the teachings of:
Monique Melton - her class for white folks about wealth redistribution in service of Black Liberation, Money Work, is EXCELLENT. Her coaching is incredible, too.
White Awake - they offer great courses for folks of European descent. I've taken Radical Genealogy and Before We Were White, and I'll continue looking to this organization for resources and guidance as I continue my unlearning/learning.
There are many more resources to name here, but some books that were directly helpful to this instance of saying things out loud include Racecraft by Karen E. Fields & Barbara J. Fields and The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, a collection of essays compiled by INCITE!
A note on the above: I have a lot to say, but I'm a white woman - I'm firmly at the top of the white supremacy pile. I'm working to be sure that I'm using the access and power that I have, and I am not the one who should be leading these conversations. We need more Black folks, more queer folks, more disabled folks, more trans folks, more Indigenous folks, more folks who are not currently at the top of our power structures on these stages using these microphones. (I also can't speak to how it would have felt to be a person of color on that stage, looking out at mostly—not all, but mostly—white faces. I'm not sure what safety looks like in these spaces.) I also know these things are being talked about and acted upon in other, perhaps more radical, more social-justice oriented spaces. For the purposes of what I'm writing right now, I'm thinking about the main stages of mainstream philanthropy events and the chasm between what's named in mainstream philanthropy (and techno-philanthropy) and what's happening in folks' lives.
I’ll share thoughts on the other feedback I heard at FluxxCon soon! Spoiler alert: “that was…interesting.” ha!
HURRICANE HELENE MUTUAL AID
Hurricane Helene has hit a bunch of folks hard. Please consider donating to mutual aid efforts to support folks on the ground. Find more info via Pansy Collective, a queer and trans-powered collective based in Appalachia. From their IG: "Pansies are colorful and durable flowers with flexible soft stems which allow them to survive frost and trampling. That is why when we say we are pansies, we mean - we will survive, grow, bloom." Their linktree will get you to where you need to get!
QUESTION
What's something that you think your field needs to talk about more on its main stages and in its main streams? let me know what you think! genevieve@gv-advisory.com
