Notes from a Wealth Redistribution Consciousness-Raising Dinner Party

Last November, Jess and Dean worked on putting together a dinner party that would function as a kind of group consciousness-raising session about wealth redistribution. We invited a number of friends, several who did not know each other but were connected socially through us and others. The group we invited included people from a range of class experiences and current circumstances. We created the event based on the idea that a key way to make change around wealth redistribution is to start conversations in our intimate circles that are overtly aimed at being non-judgmental and where people can address fears and concerns and teach each other models and ideas for addressing them. Continue reading “Notes from a Wealth Redistribution Consciousness-Raising Dinner Party”

Notes from a Wealth Redistribution Conciousness-Raising Dinner Party

Last November, Jess and Dean worked on putting together a dinner party that would function as a kind of group consciousness-raising session about wealth redistribution. We invited a number of friends, several who did not know each other but were connected socially through us and others. The group we invited included people from a range of class experiences and current circumstances. We created the event based on the idea that a key way to make change around wealth redistribution is to start conversations in our intimate circles that are overtly aimed at being non-judgmental and where people can address fears and concerns and teach each other models and ideas for addressing them. Continue reading “Notes from a Wealth Redistribution Conciousness-Raising Dinner Party”

Funders on The Revolution Will Not Be Funded

My last post about the grassroots fundraising conference reminded me about another thing I’ve been meaning to post about: last year, a group of people who met at Making Money Make Change formed a reading group to discuss the brilliant book The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond The Nonprofit Industrial Complex. Everyone in the reading group identified as having wealth in some form or another, and was trying to figure out how to give some or all of it away.

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Poor Magazine Facing Eviction

Thanks to Sailor for forwarding the news that Poor Magazine is facing eviction. You can hear all about it, and “Poor’s offensive strategy on how to deal with this eviction and the planned gentrification/displacement/colonization of the whole of Market Street and beyond” by listening to the Morning Show for July 28, 2008 on kpfa.org. Also, for those of you in the Bay Area, join Poor in protesting these events on August 7 at 8 am at 1095 Market Street (at 7th). And thanks to everyone who has been sending feedback about the site. We are happy to hear that people are eager for the conversations this site aims to spark!

Grassroots fundraising for the revolution

I just got home from Raising Change: A Social Justice Fundraising Conference, and my head is spinning with ideas and thoughts. The conference was amazing and filled with phenomenal organizers totally ready to geek out about grassroots fundraising for two days straight. It was great to be in a space with so many longtime grassroots activists (mostly people of color) talking about raising, mobilizing, and strategically using money to support a broad-based social justice movement.

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Easy come, easy go for punk rock philanthropists

I didn’t have the highest hopes for this New York Times article about giving money to social justice organizing, but I was still disappointed by the complete absence of basically anything substantive that I or my fellow “idealistic young heirs” said in our interviews. The author approached me and other folks involved in this fundraising project and in Resource Generation, pitching a story about what she called “punk rock philanthropy” (otherwise known as social change philanthropy) to run in the Fashion and Style section. Kind of ridiculous, but I was hoping it would be a useful way to direct some media attention to important social justice organizing, raise some simple critiques of philanthropy, and set a positive example for all the rich people who read the Fashion and Style section of the NY Times.

Continue reading “Easy come, easy go for punk rock philanthropists”