Everything begins and ends with seeds. Seeds of celebration, resentment, sorrow, compassion, anger, and many more, making for an infinite number of possible futures. Which ones we choose to sow, scatter, and scaffold our lives depends on a whole ecosystem of things, and our decisions matter.
Our six month sabbatical from our paid work illuminated so much. One, that full time living, maintaining our overall health, body, home, relationships, material possessions, and more takes time and a lot of resources to do well. Most of us do all of that while holding multiple jobs and mitigating all of the structural barriers and institutions of oppression. With so many of our social structures being underfunded and rooted in dehumanization and domination, it can often feel insurmountable and defeating the amount of expectations that are on an individual’s life job description. Where are the robust, holistic ecosystems of care and reciprocity to support us and our communities?
Two, this time away gave us the necessary space to reflect, digest, and decipher if the direction we were headed was still for the sake of bringing us and our communities closer to a little more freedom. Or were we filling a gap that many philanthropies and foundations feel called to do due to systematic failures and savior complexes. After deep reflection, feelings of guilt, and over- responsibility, we admitted that we had veered off course, and in light of that, made the difficult decision to close Threshold Philanthropy.
We know that this may come as a shock and disappointment to many, especially for our friends, funded partners, and dream builders. We have deep respect and gratitude for all of you, who trusted us and invited us on the vulnerable journey of sharing your dreams and having us witness them blossom! Even as a baby start-up, we have been fortunate enough to nurture relationships and resource many life-giving projects that will care for our communities for generations to come.
Closing Threshold Philanthropy came about because we had not built and fortified our internal relationships and structures to withstand getting sucked into the twister of imbalance that is the philanthropic sector. Altruistic and dreamy-eyed, we moved without boundaries and the belief that other foundations would adopt and adapt. We listened first, took time to build mutually trusting relationships, funded differently, didn’t suffer fools, and knew that giving resources was much more about returning what belonged to the community to begin with.
Pressures crept in when demands on our time grew. Black and Indigenous women are not seen at the forefront of running philanthropies, and we were getting calls from all sides to stand up and fight for the entire sector and our communities. Our decisions began to be swayed by external factors and we began reacting to urgency. The paternalistic, power-over dynamic, and injustices of philanthropy kicked up a lot for us and those we collaborated with, and we took a hard look and chose not to be consumed and numbed by it and stopped to change course.
To support our team in closing well, we brought in Stacy Torres. There were many tears, grumbles, laughter, and discomfort in saying goodbye and letting go of this chapter of our work together. On our last day together, Stacy said, “I’ve never done a facilitation like this and it ends with everyone still loving each other and hanging out afterwards.” So, here’s to change, often unwelcome, mostly because we do not have much control over any of it or how it will turn out. The transition period has been awkward, agitating, exciting, and at times lonely.
What We Are Learning:
- Fear is an exceptional teacher, ask “what have you come here to show me?” Are your insecurities coming up? Are you on the edge of growth? Do the thing anyway! be successful in the face of those fears. Imagine if our heroes just folded in the face of their fears and never set out to complete their dreams for their loved ones and us. Where would we be today?
- The “side effects of liberation” as coined by Yahn, Beth’s husband. There needs to be more of a public awareness and understanding about the aftermath of receiving resources. What is transformed, what is kicked up, and how do we best support people that will need more than just the money to address the backlog of mistreatment, disenfranchisement, and disconnection. The dominant practice of giving groups and projects money, asking them for a write up of how that money was spent and how thankful they are to have received it only centers the person with wealth. We need to be centering the people and places where that wealth was stolen from.
- What we are witnessing and for reasons of colonization (violence, isolation, poverty, loss of belonging, autonomy and opportunity), is that when returning resources to people who live with genocide, enslavement, criminalization, loss of cultural ceremonies and practices, and poverty in their bodies and lives, responses to an influx of resources can be more than just jarring.
- Off top, most of the individuals that we returned resources to were overjoyed and utilized the resources to get their basic needs met. Fix their homes and get their health in order.
- Folks struggled with their trauma responses to money and had no references to address what was coming up for them.
- Doing this work holistically means that we, the ones returning resources, must also be offering support in terms of holding people in their trauma, transitions, and transformation.
- There is no one cure for this, and we are not expected to have an exhaustive bucket of funds and coaches to meet each individual’s needs. Thinking like that as philanthropy gives us an excuse to do nothing.
- Witnessing our staff and our partners move through the ocean of receiving is priceless and a labor of love that philanthropies and most institutions truly feel they do not have time, energy, or resources for. We disagree.
- Many may say that our decision to close is FAILURE. For us, it is a privilege and a learning experience that has wielded many more lessons and wisdom to come. How many Black and Indigenous women do you know have been offered a chance to imagine and create in the name of their healing? To have the resources and an environment to create new pathways, play, design, research, adjust, and try again from a foundation of holistic well-being, and move to close when we are not in alignment. That is our miracle of a start-up story. Often, groups that begin like ours get swept up in the dream of becoming bigger and supporting more people, and for the love of people, if they are not careful, can martyr themselves and water down their work for the sake of all the good intentions, distractions, and promises of grandeur.
- Reflection is healthy in every day and season. Especially when you know that the field of philanthropy grew out of a couple of people having massive amounts of power, wealth, and domination over many. Rockefeller and Carnegie have funded genocides, libraries, and scientific breakthroughs that have saved countless lives, in that order. A little reflection goes a long way, so let’s pause, process, and pivot.
- Remember, there are no neutral stories. Learn and understand the landscape you are working to transform, find those who will fight with you, build relationships and care each step of the way.
- Sharing heartfelt and grounded goodbyes and appreciations are underestimated. Anytime you have the opportunity to say goodbye/close/end well, be brave and choose to do it.
We are looking forward to our next big adventure, and we will take the seeds from what we grew into what we become next. Seeds rooted in the wisdom of Black and Indigenous knowledge, for all things were learned and built by the minds, bodies, and wisdom of Indigenous and enslaved people. We were who they did/do their experiments on, where they learn(ed) plant medicine from, built buildings, and bred more laborers and fighters. There isn’t a single thing that has not been nurtured and learned by our people that has not fed and fattened the system that continues to exclude, extract, and kill us. So we step into the river of change, holding tight to our seeds, and say, please teach us to float and take us where we need to go.
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