I’ve been back from the #2018GEO conference for days but I’m still unpacking all the inspiration and desperation that so many funders and organizers poured forth from their personal experience of the inequity and injustice that haunt our country, our communities, and our sector. I’ll be working on this for years, but let me start by sharing a little more of their testimony here:

“The house is on fire and we’re only using 5% of our water.”

“Grantmakers should assess risk in terms of what’s the risk of NOT funding the work.”

“We’re trying to solve problems of segregation and inequality without actually dealing with segregation and inequality.”

“Every day when we don’t do something to dismantle this system, we are choosing to keep it.”

“Philanthropy looks like the welfare system. All those hoops to jump through to demonstrate value and get access to resources, when really your job is to give the money away.”

“Black women’s philanthropy holds up our community. Y’all don’t even see the places we fund. And then we can’t reach our potential because we’re stretched so thin.”

“Healing is not the goal. Liberation is.”

“This isn’t the time to make sure everything is buttoned up and just right before we do the work.”

“We need to move beyond ‘consulting’ communities to generating self-governance.”

“Scaling is to some extent re-colonizing unless the solution is coming from the people.”

“Partnerships move at the speed of trust.”

“You can push for change, but you can’t rush it.”

I don’t know if I agree wholeheartedly with all of these, but I think they’re all worth listening to wholeheartedly. What do you think?