Where & Why I Am Giving on #GivingTuesday

Following a weekend of record-breaking shopping across the country, today we get to celebrate the act of giving money away. Today is the fifth annual #GivingTuesday, a recent tradition that has spread to 70 countries and, last year, raised $117 million for nonprofit organizations.

I am still planning to publish my promised, surely much-anticipated post about Stephen Bannon very soon. In the meantime, I wanted to share some thoughts on where I am giving today and why — with the hope that it will inspire you to give before #GivingTuesday is over, and into the future.

First, some personal context: As some of my readers may know, I am a member of an organization called Resource Generation, which is a community of young people (ages 18–35) with access to wealth or class privilege looking to leverage their resources for social justice. Through one-on-one conversations, political education, giving, fundraising, community building, and direct action, Resource Generation is changing the conversation about wealthy young people’s relationship to money and moving millions of dollars toward social movements in the process.

My involvement in the organization has helped empower me to use all of my resources, including but not limited to money, toward sustainable and equitable social change. RG has instilled in me the importance of supporting community organizing as a means for people directly impacted by injustice to build their own power and determine their own futures. Most important, personally, it has pushed me away from the hesitance and even paralysis that often comes with being a person with privilege looking to support social justice movements — and toward a practice of generous, reflective risk-taking.

I believe these lessons are critical for people with wealth or class privilege, and I plan to write more about them in this blog in the hopes of sparking conversations among my fellow young professionals, Harvard alumni, North Shore folks, and family. That said, people of all classes and income levels give money (and middle-class and poor people give a greater share of their incomes than rich people!). I hope these suggestions are useful for all of my readers on this #GivingTuesday.

Here are a few of the organizations that I am giving money to today, and why:

• HIPS (Washington, DC): HIPS delivers live-saving, non-coercive, non-judgmental, life-affirming services to sex workers and drug users in Washington, DC. They are one of the few organizations around that serve these vulnerable populations, providing a key public health intervention in a political environment that may only get more hostile to this work. Today, they are raising money for a new van for their nightly outreach services. Instead of trying to convince you to give myself, I’ll share some words from my friend and personal hero Sasanka Jinadasa, who runs their outreach program:

I run two unfunded direct service programs, the hotline and the overnight outreach program. Everything that happens for us doesn’t happen easily. I spend 120+ hours a year training about 30 new volunteers to staff our overnight outreach van. I’m lucky — I have a supportive staff and an incredible team of experienced volunteers who all come together to get them ready. I don’t have much to give them except my time. I can’t count the number of times volunteers have come thru at the last minute to purchase lemonade or hot chocolate, brought their own gloves or socks to outreach so one less client wouldn’t have to go through the night freezing, or even put their own gas in the van.

When the van can’t go out because it’s breaking down, it hurts — because as an organization and a community, we put the people power together. When the only thing standing between us and serving sex workers and drug users in the District is a broken van, I’m not only hurt, I’m angry. HIPS clients deserve better than that. The people of Washington, DC deserve better than that.

I am thankful for the volunteers who run this shit, I’m thankful for the staff who keep me together when the world doesn’t understand the need we have, and I’m thankful for the clients who remind me how worth it is, EVERY DAMN DAY.

Today, I want to be thankful for all you supporters too. So, if you’ve ever told me how cool the work is, how awesome it is what we do, how you’re glad that SOMEONE out there is doing the work — prove it to me. Donate $50 right now or ask five people in your life to donate $10.

Yes, I want to do that! I’m giving here.

• North Star Fund (New York, NY): North Star Fund is a philanthropy that grants money to community organizing in New York City. They have funded grassroots organizations working on everything from police violence and workers’ rights to affordable housing and public transportation. Unlike most philanthropies, whose funding decisions get made by wealthy donors and board members, North Star puts the funding decisions in the hands of on-the-ground activists who know their communities’ needs best. Especially as many communities face very real threats to their safety, prosperity, and existence in this country come January, these local organizations that act as a first line of defense and a source of resistance need all the resources they can get. I have been meaning to donate to North Star Fund for a while, and today I’m doing it here.
• Make the Road New York (New York, NY): Make the Road organizes, supports, and empowers low-income and immigrant communities in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and Long Island. According to their website, they served 10,000 low-income New Yorkers last year through workforce and community development, leadership development, legal services, and political organizing. They are one of many immigrant rights-related organizations that are going to need our full support amid Donald Trump’s promised crackdown on immigrant families and the everyday threats immigrants already face. Let’s give here.
• Standing Rock Sioux Tribe (Standing Rock Indian Reservation): Standing Rock has been in the news a lot lately because it is the site of major grassroots resistance to a proposed oil pipeline that threatens to pollute the water source of the Sioux Tribe. Beyond the clear injustice of an already vulnerable population having their water supply compromised by a private company and permissive government (recall Flint, MI, too), I am supporting the #NoDAPL movement because the fight for an end to fossil fuel use is more urgent than ever. In my view, we don’t need more oil pipelines, and we certainly don’t need them polluting our water now even as they harm our planet over time. I am supporting the tribe here because I am grateful for their self-sacrificing protection of our planet.
• Les Turner ALS Foundation (Skokie, IL): To me, giving means supporting communities that need my support and that point us in the direction of the kind of just world I hope to live in. That looks like funding social justice movements and community organizing. It also looks like supporting organizations that have directly impacted my life and the life of those I love. I am re-upping my support of the Les Turner ALS Foundation — which is a leader in ALS treatment, research, and advocacy, — because it was a lifeline for my late grandmother as she fought against that ugly, fatal disease. ALS, a rare neurodegenerative disease with no known cure but a well-known “Ice Bucket Challenge,” affects people of all walks of life. I am so grateful that the Foundation was there for my grandmother when she needed treatment and our family needed support. And I am proud that my mom has since joined the organization as Executive Director because she, too, was moved by their work. With health care for the needy and scientific research for all of us on the chopping block next year, the least I can do is give. Join me?

I hope my list sparked some ideas for your giving today and going forward. Let me know, in the comments or in person, where you’re giving, and let’s talk about how we can make the most impact with our resources together.