How to decolonize your donations and charitable giving

America was founded on much more than the idealistic notions of freedom and liberty. Its colonial beginnings included destructive individualism, capitalist exploitation, and white supremacy. Those ideals have influenced how our country operates today, shaping its political, social, and economic systems, including those that seem to do good on the surface.

Take, for example, our country’s immense philanthropy industry and the accompanying ways we donate and support causes for social good. The billion dollar system wasn’t an ahistorical design. It facilitates funders’ political and social goals, which can include helping those they deem disadvantaged. Still, philanthropy was also originally built on generational wealth made through extractive labor that profited off of the lives of Black, brown, and indigenous communities, like oil drilling or agricultural slavery that built the fortunes of white families. Although that wealth may come from different sources today, the process of giving away that wealth — choosing who is fit to receive charity — upholds vestiges of colonization. And individual donors can replicate those systems in their own donation practices, too.

Edgar Villanueva is the founder and principal of the Decolonizing Wealth Project and its project Liberated Capital, which operates a network of community members and donors to build equitable, unrestricted capital streams for communities of color around the country. Villanueva himself has worked in the field of philanthropy for almost two decades, and written two books about the subject, Decolonizing Wealth and Money as Medicine. As Villanueva described, it’s easy for powerful, rich, and predominantly white donors to exert power over less advantaged actors within philanthropy (consider charities, fellowship programs, grant opportunities, and other nonprofits), and he connects this directly to colonization.

Centuries of economic privilege for white families has provided a bed of resource support for the rich and white to become leaders in this field. Predominately white philanthropic leadership upholds the lingering effects of colonization — things like systemic racism, racial wealth gaps, and educational divides between ivy league elites and the average American — through the ways charitable funding is controlled and shared, Villanueva explains.

He points to his own experience working for the philanthropic arm of a former plantation site.”I just literally drove to work every day, to a former slave plantation, where I was responsible for giving away the wealth that this family had accumulated,” he reflected. The money reaped from that system was still controlled by white benefactors, and it was now being used to help those they saw fit for it. And as a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, he also sees colonization play out in how charity has been used to control indigenous people — imposing “solutions” on communities without consulting on the members’ actual needs and frequently ignoring the claim for tribal sovereignty.

“I know as an indigenous person that my healing is contingent on the oppressor also being a part of that healing process. I can heal on my own. But, so far, we can’t heal as a community at large until we are all engaged in [decolonization].”

To decolonize your donations means you are taking an intersectional, historical look at how wealth’s been generated and how it’s now being redistributed to the same communities that built and died for it. In order to address the power of the wealthy few and our own internalized biases, every donor must be conscious of how their money impacts marginalized communities.

Part of that process is being more intentional in how you donate your own wealth. “Money is a proxy for years of colonization and oppression and intentional policy that has disenfranchised people of color and Black folks and Native folks in this country,” says Villanueva. “But [money] can absolutely help to alleviate the suffering and the trauma that has been caused, as a result of how it was used before.”

Here are a few big questions you should be asking yourself and the groups, foundations, or organizations you’re donating to in order to decolonize your own donations.

Who are the decision makers?

Villanueva said that the racial wealth gap is in many ways a manifestation of how colonization has affected communities over generations, and the gap is deeply present in the philanthropic space. A report by philanthropy diversity initiative the D5 Coalition found that 92 percent of foundation presidents are white, and as of 2020, so are 83 percent of other executive staff in these organizations. “It’s no surprise that the majority of those folks are white, because it’s white folks who have had the economic opportunity boost because of policies and systems and are in the position to start foundations,” Villanueva said. “When we do have the opportunity to bring people of color into some of those places, they are often from elite backgrounds. So there’s a major disconnect that’s happening in terms of who decides how resources are being used and where they go.”

He explained that, historically, less than 10 percent of philanthropic giving goes to communities of color, representing how white privilege and wealth still operates in a system supposedly designed to benefit the underprivileged. “That’s sort of a major byproduct of white supremacy and how it’s been operating in this sector,” he said.

He said when incorporating decolonization into your own donation practices, we should first turn our attention towards the people leading. Who is in charge of the organization and how is money distributed? Who is making these decisions on the behalf of the recipients. Is the board of this charity, grant-making board, or this nonprofit predominantly white? If so, why?

“If, at the end of the day, there’s a white man somewhere who signs the checks and calls the shots, then you have to question how performative it is,” Villanueva asked. “Are we really relinquishing power if we have programs that are doing things, but not taking a step back to let the community have self determination and sovereignty over these resources?”

“If, at the end of the day, there’s a white man somewhere who signs the checks and calls the shots, then you have to question how performative it is.”

Typically, you’ll find this information on an organization’s website — check out it’s board of directors, read their biographies and their areas of interest, and be aware of who’s being consulted to make decisions if the leadership doesn’t reflect the groups receiving aid. Support causes you’re personally aligned with, but look beyond just the big players. “I think that people should give where their heart is moved to give, toward the issues they care about. But within those issues — if you care about animals, if you care about children, education, or health — there are Black-and-brown-led organizations doing that work that you should seek out and try to privilege in your giving.”

Where is the money flowing?

This question is two-fold and linear: Ask where the money came from, and where it’s going. 

This fits into the decades-old idea of reparations, which shouldn’t be thought of as a form of charity, said Villanueva. In his own personal example, the generational wealth from plantation land should be going to Black communities, preferably those in the immediate area or ancestors of former enslaved people, before they reach others. “Bringing that framework of reparations into this sector has been about examining where did this money come from in the first place? And on whose back and on whose land? What is the obligation to get it back? Not from a framework of making people feel guilty or shaming people,” he said.

Philanthropy can use the case for reparations as a model for where to distribute funds: Where is the money going, geographically? Can funds, grants, or other resources be intentionally directed towards the communities who originally created the wealth, Villanueva asks?

Keep in mind how a nonprofit or charitable organization has decided to spread out its wealth in equitable, diverse ways. Consider looking at a nonprofit’s community impact statements online to see how they envision their own goals and success. Find out more about how sites like Charity Navigator, Impact Matters, and GuideStar assess impact reports.

If a nonprofit led by the community its serving isn’t reporting this information, don’t immediately revoke your support, Villanueva says. “A lot of nonprofits really struggle around their capacity to do the storytelling and report back,” he explained. “Allow organizations to tell their story of impact in their own way.”

How is the money distributed?

When donating to a group or supporting a larger philanthropic initiative, consider the funding process. “How is power operating and who decides?” Villanueva explains. “Funders in their ivory towers can sort of create solutions for communities that are very detached from the realities of our people. And there’s a forced assimilation that often happens, because of the power that foundations and donors wield.”

This sense of assimilation can impact how organizations led by people of color apply for grants, how they propose and present solutions for their communities, and how their work is evaluated by power holders (or even individual donors). Just like in hiring processes, standards of white professionalism and culturally-relevant things like writing and speaking styles, influence how organizations are perceived by money holders. It’s a kind of charitable respectability politics that can have a huge influence on a group led by Black, brown, and indigenous communities.

How are the people you’re giving money to working to disrupt these barriers for people of color? For large philanthropies that support smaller organizations or individuals, note any parameters attached to funding, which can specify how a recipient can use the funds. How could those restrictions impact how resources get to people on-the-ground and limit their ability to address ever-changing needs? Villanueva thinks specifically about application processes, and how things like excessive paperwork, references, or other social requirements can limit diversity in the applicant pool. The Liberated Capital project has phased out a lot of the traditional application process for those seeking funding, relying on a committee made up of fellow Liberated Capital members to make decisions.

As an individual donor to nonprofits, make note if its programs are incorporating members of the community in decision-making processes and if they’re open to alternative and culturally-relevant solutions to problems within their work — look at mission statements, organizational philosophies, and check out any partners listed on its website.

Ask how social networks impact a community’s access to the funding, as well. Is the organization collaborating with other philanthropic or charity groups run by people of color with varying experiences?

Why are you choosing to donate?

The point of philanthropy, Villanueva said, is not to exact more control over marginalized groups. Donors should hold recipients accountable to a responsible extent, but exerting excessive oversight over your charity — eyeballing your money long after it’s left your hand — can replicate these power imbalances by placing excess burden on people of color to prove themselves to a more privileged audience. “It perpetuates a narrative sometimes that people of color working in the nonprofit sector — our organizations — are not worthy. They can’t be trusted. They don’t have the capacity. I’ve heard those narratives for twenty years,” Villanueva said.

In an analysis by nonprofit philanthropy advisors Echoing Green and The Bridgespan Group, researchers found that the amount of money earned by Black-led organizations receiving donations or applying for other philanthropic assistance was 24 percent smaller than white-led ones. And when it comes to funding given without restrictions to nonprofits, that difference jumps to 76 percent. That means that no-strings-attached money handed out by philanthropists is much more likely to be given to white groups.

As Villanueva explains, we’ve already spent generations controlling the way people of color and indigenous communities comport themselves, how they’re allowed to interact with and exchange knowledge with each other, and how they can earn and spend their own money. To decolonize the way we donate, and the way we view philanthropy, is to relinquish that control and trust the recipients of our donations. 

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do your due diligence to make sure your philanthropy is actually going to reputable sources. But Villanueva encourages donors to interrogate why they feel the need to monitor certain donations over others. If you don’t look into where the money you drop into Salvation Army buckets, why do you side eye the actions of mutual aid networks? Ask yourself: Who have you decided to trust, and why? And, he said, don’t demand more labor from smaller organizations, especially organizations run by and for people of color, than you do from larger ones. 

Villanueva believes that money, which has exerted a traumatizing amount of control over communities of color, can also be healing. “If we’ve used money to harm, can we also use money to heal?” Villanueva asks. “If we’re deploying resources and investing resources toward repair, then I do think that money can be used for a sacred purpose and be medicine.”