By Cate Fox, Ambitio US Director
You know that feeling of meeting someone for the first time, but it feels like you have known them forever? That happened to me recently — but it wasn’t with a person, it was with a group of people. In May 2023, I attended my first national convening of Neighborhood Funders Group (NFG) , and I wasn’t sure what to expect. Its mission is to organize “philanthropy so that Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities and low-income communities thrive” — but there is what is said and what is done. Yes, I admit it, I was skeptical. Turns out, I didn’t need to worry — these were our people.
The opening plenary entitled, “Welcome to Wilmington [NC]! The Roots of Racial Capitalism in Eastern North Carolina and the South” provided grounding both in history and peoples’ lived experiences. We were reminded that roots don’t grow overnight and that the concept of “resilience” is a double-edged sword. Plenary speakers invited us into their communities with photos and stories to share how joy, abundance, and oppression show up side-by-side. They told us about the futures they are creating, centered in their cultural communities. Futures that include access to affordable healthy food, youth-led solutions to address gun violence, and ways in which neighbors can care for each other in times of disaster. Those are the futures we need!
In other sessions we discussed building power at a variety of intersections (climate and justice), how funders can and need to organize (both within their organizations and with other funders), moving from extractive to values-aligned investment portfolios, and the value and difficulties of building trust between movement leaders and funders.
In between sessions, it was wonderful to meet up with people — some of whom I had only met online, to take long walks, to share a meal, or to grab a late night ice cream in downtown. The conversation (and the ice cream) was top notch. We talked about moving capital differently, our families, and the things that we are dreaming about. This work is all about people and our connections to each other, and it was wonderful that the agenda itself built in purposeful time for rest and play. And the conference-goers took their end of the day dance parties very seriously!
The fact that these conversations took place with Wilmington as a backdrop was no accident. Students of history will note that it is the site of the only coup d’etat to ever take place in America, The Wilmington Insurrection of 1898 , which bore witness to a white-supremacist-led massacre, which killed more than 200 Black people and resulted in the violent explusion of the city’s powerful Black political figures.
Hope and danger seem to co-exist in building more just systems that truly work for everyone. But the promise and joy that a different way of being unlocks makes it irresistible and necessary. We have no way to go but forward.
This article was originally published on Medium. Read it on Medium →