Justice Funders launches Liberate Philanthropy and Stifled Generosity

By Justice FundersPosted under Announcements

Justice Funders has launched Liberate Philanthropy: a new blog series to re-imagine philanthropyStifled Generosity: How Philanthropy has Fueled the Accumulation and Privatization of Wealth

In this moment of grave social, economic and environmental crises, now is the time for all of us to envision and practice philanthropy that is free from its current constraints — a field that enables the accumulation and privatization of wealth, and the centralization of power and control  — to one that redistributes wealth, democratizes power and shifts economic control to communities.

In April 2018, Justice Funders launched Liberate Philanthropy – a new blog series with stories contributed from some of our most forward thinking, transformational allies about how they are facilitating a Just Transition for philanthropy. What their stories reveal is that changes are already taking place, and it’s up to each of us to decide whether to uphold the status quo or dismantle it. New posts will be published each week – follow us on twitter so you don’t miss a single post!

We also recognize that making a transition toward a new vision of philanthropy requires that we first understand the laws and practices that have led the modern field of philanthropy to perpetuate the systemic inequalities it was established to combat. To do so, Justice Funders has compiled a brief outline and analysis of historical events, Stifled Generosity: How Philanthropy has Fueled the Accumulation and Privatization of Wealth. We’d love to hear your thoughts and reflections about how we can learn from these events to usher in a new era for our field.

Our hope is that Stifled Generosity and Liberate Philanthropy will support individual, organizational, and field-wide transformation in philanthropy to achieve a Just Transition from an extractive economy to a regenerative one. We hope that you, too, will join us in facilitating a Just Transition for philanthropy. Because, as shared by Dana Kawaoka-Chen, Executive Director of Justice Funders, in her opening post: “We are clear that transformation will take a critical mass of us in the field to channel our collective resources to shift what seems like an indomitable system that perpetuates depletion, degradation and extraction.”

We look forward to being on this journey of philanthropic transformation with you.