In his new book, “Decolonizing Wealth,” Native author and philanthropist Edgar Villanueva confronts the colonial dynamics at play in philanthropy and builds a framework centered on communities of color.
By catherine lizette gonzalez
October 23, 2018
In the United States, seven of the richest grant-making foundations own roughly over $100 billion in assets. Many critics of large philanthropic foundations point to the self-serving ways that these organizations benefit from their good charity: through corporate lobbying, tax exemptions and detracting from the harm they do to workers, people of color and the environment.
“The basis of traditional philanthropy is to preserve wealth, and that wealth is fundamentally money that’s been twice stolen,” writes author Edgar Villanueva in his new book “Decolonizing Wealth,” “once through the exploitation of natural resources and cheap labor, and the second time, through tax evasion.”
But there may be a way to restore balance within this overwhelmingly White, capitalist and privileged financial sector and help social justice initiatives in the long term, Villanueva says. His new book released last week, calls on people working in philanthropy to move away from the individualistic and transactional practices of rich people donating money to poor people. Instead, he says, we must adopt a culture of reciprocity — where mutual sharing and community are at the core of financing social change. Villanueva, who is chair of the board of directors of Native Americans in Philanthropy, pulls from his own experience as a Lumbee from the South to offer solutions that pull money out of the hands of a wealthy few and into social justice movements.
Here, Colorlines speaks to Villanueva about undoing philanthropy’s White supremacist legacy, empowering communities to take advantage of resources and building power for people of color to own and imagine their futures: http://bit.ly/2D05tTh.
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