Every year I take stock of the landscape of my life. How I have been spending my time, who I am spending it with, what commitments I’ve made, what’s felt refilling and generative, what’s been taxing and why? I think about what needs to be “planted’ or “pruned” and each season reflect on what balance needs to be restored.
For a while it’s been weighing on me to be more deliberate with the money I am earning through social justice communications work. I am a white woman who works primarily with foundations that focus on racial justice, with special emphasis on community power-building. I am lucky enough that at this point in my career I can bring some specificity to my work and where I put my time and energy, who I decide to partner with. Right now, I am working with foundations taking active steps to place decision making over their resources with people that our society has stripped and stolen from — finding some way to restore resources and shift power, even if it is through the flawed system of philanthropy.
While I make donations and give back, it has been sitting with me that it is time for a shift in that approach, to continue to move into a rebalancing and repair of harm, in particular thinking about land and labor that have made my company possible. I want to share that Constellation Communications, the communications shop that I own and run, has set company policy to redistribute at least 5% of the income we earn to people and organizations whose land and labor we’ve benefited from.
As I’ve deepened my own practices from academic, to political, to embodied, this step of embedding and naming redistribution of income within the company policy seems important. I hope that by sharing this it sparks curiosity and creativity in people like me who have been pulled out of balance, and through none of our own doing, set in a position with more means and power than we would have otherwise.
I hope this encourages thinking about ways that through money and other resources we can get back into balance with ourselves, our communities and greater human networks. Individual action does not create system-level change, but I believe that the continual practice and awareness of the imbalance and possibility of repair primes us to work collectively in the organizing for liberation that can.
- For me, this means releasing money back to the Lenape people, whose unceded land is where I live and work — like many of us — as a settler. It is also supporting Black and people of color-led community organizing efforts in Brooklyn, to back their vision for this community, its resources and stewardship.
- It also means redistributing earnings to people and organizations responsible for my political education, who build and grow power, organizing for liberation — to break apart racialized capitalism, to protect bodily autonomy, to hold a vision of self-determination and community care — even when, especially when, it is not in the news or worse when it is positioned as a threat.
- For my work, it means I also want to give back to the storytellers, narrative power builders, emotion and words-workers, and strategists that I learn from, and who I hope to hold the line with through my labor and contributions.
- Finally, a small note that this policy is written with the understanding that the charitable tax code is written to protect the people making donations, not for the best use or solutions of the people who are leading efforts for social justice and transformative change. People need to eat, bills need to be paid, organizing expenses need to be covered, and it is essential to think beyond a tax code when the vision is community resiliency and care. This means dollars in hands on the street, mutual aid, gofundmes, and other ways we support each other that are personal and direct.
I understand that these steps do not fix or rectify the harm of our country, society or systems. They aren’t penance. They are a practice. It feels like the right next step for me in continual personal practice and feeling into right relationship with money, with power, with community and the greater ecosystem that movement workers are weaving together for a more just, more joyful world.
I hope this generates energy and breakthrough ideas for what you may be puzzling through. Wishing you the curiosity and resolve to take action and make connections that put you in balance.
