Ep. 64 - Non-Profit Industrial Complex ft. Lizette Garza

BrownTown talks non-profit industrial complex, financial
surveillance, drill rap, and everything in between with Lizette
Garza, Program Manager at Crossroads Fund. The gang dissects the
philanthropic world's inherent root in inequity as well as its
changes and challenges from the grassroots over the years. 


Lizette brings her lived experience as well as work with
Crossroads into the conversation around the role of non-profits,
funding "radical" initiatives, and the impact coronavirus and the
George Floyd uprisings had on them. As summer 2020 brought a
racial justice reckoning, everyday people began to distrust
institutions, better understand how whiteness and anti-Blackness
permeates in even (and especially) the most trusted charitable
giving, and how we can build better networks for funding,
support, and trust outside of established institutions. BrownTown
and Lizette analyze unpack these topics while reflecting on their
own roles in movement work and as funders/fundees. As media
creators and lovers of hip hop, they center the power of media,
art, and imagination in pushing back against oppressive ways of
thinking and accepting and living out abolitionist politics.


Considering it all, BrownTown and Lizette distill these larger
dialogues wrestling with how to work within and simultaneously
resist a system built on the same hierarchies and oppression it
is supposed to challenge. Ultimately, we're all just trying to
figure out where the money reside. Originally recorded December
3, 2020.


#TwerkForLiberation


GUEST


Lizette Garza is the Program Manager at Crossroads Fund, a public
foundation  that supports community organizations working on
issues of racial, social and economic justice in the Chicago
area. Lizette supports community-based grant making, and movement
building programs like The Giving Project and Cultivate: A Women
of Color Leadership program. Previously, Lizette has a background
in youth development and music industry serving as a Program
Specialist at After School Matters and Teaching Artist at
ElevArte Community Studio. She is a longtime Pilsen-resident with
a love for hip hop, yoga, and cooking. Outside of trust-based
philanthropy, she is a Music Curator for ReverbNation. Follow
Lizette on Instagram and Twitter; and Crossroads Fund on their
site, Instagram, and Twitter.


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Mentioned media, topics, and information:



San Francisco billionaire gives $30M to study
homelessness, AP

** Episode Correction: Marc Benioff gave $30 million, not
billions **



"Donor Advised Funds" segment of Patriot Act with
Hasan Minhaj


Shit's Totally FUCKED! What Can We Do?: A Mutual Aid
Explainer, Narration by Dean Spade

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - Instagram Cooking + Q&A
(December 10, 2020)

Abolitionist challenge the FORD Foundation's support of
replacing Rikers Jail


Racism by the Numbers: How the Internal Revenue Service
Targets Poor Black Taxpayers, The Root


Hyperlocal Giving to Black-Led Nonprofits Cannot Simply Be a
Trend, SSIR

NonProfitAF.com



Description of the book, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded:
Beyond the Non-profit Industrial Complex by INCITE!



A trillion-dollar industry, the US non-profit sector is
one of the world's largest economies. From art museums and
university hospitals to think tanks and church charities, over
1.5 million organizations of staggering diversity share the
tax-exempt 501(c)(3) designation, if little else. Many social
justice organizations have joined this world, often blunting
political goals to satisfy government and foundation mandates.
But even as funding shrinks, many activists often find it
difficult to imagine movement-building outside the non-profit
model. The Revolution Will Not Be Funded gathers essays by
radical activists, educators, and non-profit staff from around
the globe who critically rethink the long-term consequences of
what they call the "non-profit industrial complex." Drawing on
their own experiences, the contributors track the history of
non-profits and provide strategies to transform and work
outside them. Urgent and visionary, The Revolution Will Not Be
Funded presents a biting critique of the quietly devastating
role the non-profit industrial complex plays in managing
dissent.



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CREDITS: Intro soundbite Kofi Ademola from the
Chi DNA interview with audio track by Genta Tamashiro. Outro song
Where the Money Reside (Remix) w/ IMarkkeyz by Seude the
Remix God. Audio engineered by Genta Tamashiro with assistance
from Kiera Battles. Episode photo by Jamie Kelter Davis.


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