Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > The Alternative Wealth Model: Funding Organizing and Wealth
Redistribution
________________________________________
The Alternative Wealth Model: Funding Organizing and Wealth Redistribution
By Kate Aronoff [1] / Waging Nonviolence [2]
October 25, 2015
In a political and economic system seemingly tailor-made for the 1 percent,
backlash against "wealth therapy" - the trend of moneyed Americans seeking
counsel through their Occupy-induced feeling of shame and isolation - is
well-placed. While the top 0.1 percent of families in the United States
possess as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, money psychologist Jamie
Traege-Muney moaned to the Guardian [3] that the movement wrongly "singled
out the 1 percent and painted them globally as something negative."
But a growing cadre of this statistical owning class are now crafting a
healthier relationship with the rabble at their doorstep. Responding to
Occupy and other movement moments, young people with wealth are organizing
the resources of their peers and families to level the playing field, and
support one another in the process.
"It's not that I disagree that having wealth in this society is
uncomfortable," said organizer and donor Farhad Ebrahimi. "But treating it
is not about individual therapy or even engaging in philanthropy or charity.
It's about collective action."
As a teenager, Ebrahimi was gifted a pool of wealth from his high-tech
entrepreneur father. Growing up Iranian-American during the Iran-Iraq war
was part of a "perfect storm" that led him to punk rock and radical
politics, though for years Ebrahimi continued to identify more as a musician
than an organizer. It was only later that he would conjoin his background
with his beliefs.
"I wasn't even 100 percent sure they were compatible at first," he
explained. "I approached philanthropy pretty agnostically in the beginning."
Shortly after graduating from MIT in 2002, Ebrahimi founded the Chorus
Foundation [4] using $25 million of his personal money. Focused on funding
projects to address climate change, Chorus is dedicated to "working for a
just transition to a regenerative economy in the United States." And unlike
other foundations, Chorus has a built-in expiration date: intending to spend
out the entirety of its - and Ebrahimi's - reserves by 2024. While he
expects another gift from his father at some point in the future, he says it
will go toward a "Chorus Foundation Round Two" with the same goal.
"I'm trying to put myself out of business," Ebrahimi said. "And I'm trying
to create a world in which someone would not end up in my situation of
having been gifted more money than I possibly know what to do with."
Andrew Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth, a bible of sorts for modern
philanthropists, was written at the height of the Gilded Age in 1889.
Observing the continued accumulation and stratification of wealth that
surrounded him, Carnegie declared it "a waste of time to criticize the
inevitable," seeing inequality - not unlike the contemporary economist
Thomas Piketty - as a structural outcome of capitalism. He scorned the
"socialists or anarchists who seek to overturn present conditions," arguing
that their plight "is to be regarded as attacking the foundation upon which
civilization itself rests."
Much like Hillary Clinton did in last week's Democratic debate, Carnegie
argued that the wealthy have to "save capitalism from itself," ameliorating
its worst excesses by choosing to redistribute their own surplus. In doing
so, he called on his fellow industrialists to "consider how the foundation,
as one of the [capitalist] system's most prominent offspring, might act most
wisely to strengthen and improve its progenitor."
Organizer Abe Lateiner - who describes his giving as "spiritual and
empowering work" - has a gospel that is noticeably distinct from Carnegie's.
Confronting the idea that society's most well-off should pick which causes
deserve funds, Lateiner warns that "Writing checks by yourself on New Year's
Eve is not liberating if you're doing what you think is best - which is
exactly what got us here."
"The isolation thing is very real," Lateiner said of his affluent brethren
seeking wealth therapy. "There are very specific, non-material, damaging
things that come with privilege." Excess resources, he explained, "are
wonderful for our material well-being, but destroy the spirit [and] our
ability to connect socially."
Having grown up in a "solidly Democratic" household, Lateiner's family never
discussed money around the dinner table, and he struggled to explain his
circumstances even to close friends. "My inability to talk about money or
class on a personal level has definitely ruined relationships and cut off
opportunities for relationships," Lateiner said. "I mean that as friendships
and romantic relationships and everything in between." Having taught for six
years - something he described as "the best way, within my liberal
framework, I could think of to give back" - Lateiner came across an article
in the New York Times [5] in 2012 about young, socially conscious heirs,
including Naomi Sobel and Resource Generation executive director Jessie
Spector.
"The ground started to shift under my feet," Lateiner remembered. Not only
were Sobel and Spector speaking openly about their wealth and about giving
it away; they were happy about it. He looked Resource Generation up online
and quickly became involved. This collective version of wealth therapy
emerged from "being able to be with people who understand [the problems of
having wealth] and can honor them to get past the guilt." A national,
chapter-based organization, Resource Generation serves as a space for both
support and political education among young people with wealth. More
recently, it has also become a platform for them to leverage resources
toward "an equitable redistribution of land, wealth and power." An
initiative launched last year called "It Starts Today" collaborated with
racial justice groups around the country to raise $1.4 million for the
movement for black lives and other black-led organizing.
While Ebrahimi has worked with Resource Generation, he's also been involved
with the upstart funders' network Solidaire [6], which looks to combine
Resource Generation's political analysis and support structures with a
commitment to moving sizable resources toward burgeoning movements. Founded
in the wake of Occupy in 2012, Solidaire's grants have backed everything
from the People's Climate March to on-the-ground mobilizations in Ferguson,
Missouri to work against the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Three classes of
grants support movements at different stages in their development, be it in
"movement moments" like Darren Wilson's non-indictment, or building out
long-term infrastructure for when reporters stop calling.
Apart from Solidaire, Ebrahimi also noted that Occupy marked a kind of sea
change among more mainstream funders' circles, who are now more open than
ever to cross-issue conversations centered on justice. Black Lives Matter
co-founder Alicia Garza, for instance, was invited to speak at the
Environmental Grantmakers' Association's annual conference this year, a
small step, but something Ebrahimi said would have been virtually unheard of
just a few years ago.
Both Ebrahimi and Lateiner emphasized the importance of honesty when
approaching movements as people with wealth. While he was involved in Occupy
Boston, Ebrahimi walked around the Dewey Square encampment with a shirt
bearing the words "I am the 1%. I stand with the 99%."
"There was a time when I was scared that anybody with good politics would be
inherently wary of somebody sitting on a pile of gifted money," he recalled.
But being clear about his background from the outset was met with more
excitement than derision. Instead of worrying about being judged by his
fellow occupiers, Ebrahimi "could focus on trying to support a political
moment that I thought was important, making a bunch of new friends and
having all sorts of crazy adventures. It really never had to be an elephant
in the room that I was a rich kid with a foundation."
Meanwhile, Lateiner has started dressing up rather than down in movement
spaces, where being open about his wealth has enabled him to build trust
with working class organizers. "I have to be careful about the way I choose
to speak and behave in those spaces," he said. "But I'm not going to deny
who I am."
While acknowledging the trials of extreme wealth, Lateiner, Ebrahimi and
other forward-thinking heirs are turning to one another for support, not
so-called money psychologists. They take solace, too, in putting their
personal resources to work. "Under a scarcity mentality, we're taught to see
giving as losing something, rather than seeing it as getting to be part of
justice," Lateiner said. And for the wealthy, he added, being a part of
justice means not getting to define it. "I think the best work happens when
people who are funding it get the hell out of the way."
For solutions, they turn to movements. As opposed to Carnegie, this new
breed of philanthropists rejects their so-called "obligations" to
capitalism, and are eager to help build a fundamentally different economy.
"When we respond to the crisis of income inequality, we're really responding
to the crisis of consolidated wealth," Ebrahimi explained. "What that says
to me is that we're trying to create a world in which there is no radically
consolidated wealth. Without that, you don't have any foundations" - or, at
least, any wealth therapists.
Kate Aronoff is an organizer and freelance writer whose writing has been
published in Waging Nonviolence, Dissent Magazine, AlterNet, and the New
York Times. Find her on Twitter at @katearonoff [7].
Share on Facebook Share
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Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [8]
[9]
________________________________________
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/alternative-wealth-model-funding-organizing-
and-wealth-redistribution
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/kate-aronoff
[2] http://wagingnonviolence.org/
[3]
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/17/wealth-therapy-tackles-woes-o
f-the-rich-its-really-isolating-to-have-lots-of-money
[4] http://chorusfoundation.org/about/
[5]
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/your-money/estate-planning/what-to-tell-ch
ildren-about-their-bequest-and-when.html
[6] http://www.solidairenetwork.org/
[7] https://twitter.com/KateAronoff
[8] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on The Alternative Wealth
Model: Funding Organizing and Wealth Redistribution
[9] http://www.alternet.org/
[10] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > The Alternative Wealth Model: Funding Organizing and Wealth
Redistribution
The Alternative Wealth Model: Funding Organizing and Wealth Redistribution
By Kate Aronoff [1] / Waging Nonviolence [2]
October 25, 2015
In a political and economic system seemingly tailor-made for the 1 percent,
backlash against "wealth therapy" - the trend of moneyed Americans seeking
counsel through their Occupy-induced feeling of shame and isolation - is
well-placed. While the top 0.1 percent of families in the United States
possess as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, money psychologist Jamie
Traege-Muney moaned to the Guardian [3] that the movement wrongly "singled
out the 1 percent and painted them globally as something negative."
But a growing cadre of this statistical owning class are now crafting a
healthier relationship with the rabble at their doorstep. Responding to
Occupy and other movement moments, young people with wealth are organizing
the resources of their peers and families to level the playing field, and
support one another in the process.
"It's not that I disagree that having wealth in this society is
uncomfortable," said organizer and donor Farhad Ebrahimi. "But treating it
is not about individual therapy or even engaging in philanthropy or charity.
It's about collective action."
As a teenager, Ebrahimi was gifted a pool of wealth from his high-tech
entrepreneur father. Growing up Iranian-American during the Iran-Iraq war
was part of a "perfect storm" that led him to punk rock and radical
politics, though for years Ebrahimi continued to identify more as a musician
than an organizer. It was only later that he would conjoin his background
with his beliefs.
"I wasn't even 100 percent sure they were compatible at first," he
explained. "I approached philanthropy pretty agnostically in the beginning."
Shortly after graduating from MIT in 2002, Ebrahimi founded the Chorus
Foundation [4] using $25 million of his personal money. Focused on funding
projects to address climate change, Chorus is dedicated to "working for a
just transition to a regenerative economy in the United States." And unlike
other foundations, Chorus has a built-in expiration date: intending to spend
out the entirety of its - and Ebrahimi's - reserves by 2024. While he
expects another gift from his father at some point in the future, he says it
will go toward a "Chorus Foundation Round Two" with the same goal.
"I'm trying to put myself out of business," Ebrahimi said. "And I'm trying
to create a world in which someone would not end up in my situation of
having been gifted more money than I possibly know what to do with."
Andrew Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth, a bible of sorts for modern
philanthropists, was written at the height of the Gilded Age in 1889.
Observing the continued accumulation and stratification of wealth that
surrounded him, Carnegie declared it "a waste of time to criticize the
inevitable," seeing inequality - not unlike the contemporary economist
Thomas Piketty - as a structural outcome of capitalism. He scorned the
"socialists or anarchists who seek to overturn present conditions," arguing
that their plight "is to be regarded as attacking the foundation upon which
civilization itself rests."
Much like Hillary Clinton did in last week's Democratic debate, Carnegie
argued that the wealthy have to "save capitalism from itself," ameliorating
its worst excesses by choosing to redistribute their own surplus. In doing
so, he called on his fellow industrialists to "consider how the foundation,
as one of the [capitalist] system's most prominent offspring, might act most
wisely to strengthen and improve its progenitor."
Organizer Abe Lateiner - who describes his giving as "spiritual and
empowering work" - has a gospel that is noticeably distinct from Carnegie's.
Confronting the idea that society's most well-off should pick which causes
deserve funds, Lateiner warns that "Writing checks by yourself on New Year's
Eve is not liberating if you're doing what you think is best - which is
exactly what got us here."
"The isolation thing is very real," Lateiner said of his affluent brethren
seeking wealth therapy. "There are very specific, non-material, damaging
things that come with privilege." Excess resources, he explained, "are
wonderful for our material well-being, but destroy the spirit [and] our
ability to connect socially."
Having grown up in a "solidly Democratic" household, Lateiner's family never
discussed money around the dinner table, and he struggled to explain his
circumstances even to close friends. "My inability to talk about money or
class on a personal level has definitely ruined relationships and cut off
opportunities for relationships," Lateiner said. "I mean that as friendships
and romantic relationships and everything in between." Having taught for six
years - something he described as "the best way, within my liberal
framework, I could think of to give back" - Lateiner came across an article
in the New York Times [5] in 2012 about young, socially conscious heirs,
including Naomi Sobel and Resource Generation executive director Jessie
Spector.
"The ground started to shift under my feet," Lateiner remembered. Not only
were Sobel and Spector speaking openly about their wealth and about giving
it away; they were happy about it. He looked Resource Generation up online
and quickly became involved. This collective version of wealth therapy
emerged from "being able to be with people who understand [the problems of
having wealth] and can honor them to get past the guilt." A national,
chapter-based organization, Resource Generation serves as a space for both
support and political education among young people with wealth. More
recently, it has also become a platform for them to leverage resources
toward "an equitable redistribution of land, wealth and power." An
initiative launched last year called "It Starts Today" collaborated with
racial justice groups around the country to raise $1.4 million for the
movement for black lives and other black-led organizing.
While Ebrahimi has worked with Resource Generation, he's also been involved
with the upstart funders' network Solidaire [6], which looks to combine
Resource Generation's political analysis and support structures with a
commitment to moving sizable resources toward burgeoning movements. Founded
in the wake of Occupy in 2012, Solidaire's grants have backed everything
from the People's Climate March to on-the-ground mobilizations in Ferguson,
Missouri to work against the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Three classes of
grants support movements at different stages in their development, be it in
"movement moments" like Darren Wilson's non-indictment, or building out
long-term infrastructure for when reporters stop calling.
Apart from Solidaire, Ebrahimi also noted that Occupy marked a kind of sea
change among more mainstream funders' circles, who are now more open than
ever to cross-issue conversations centered on justice. Black Lives Matter
co-founder Alicia Garza, for instance, was invited to speak at the
Environmental Grantmakers' Association's annual conference this year, a
small step, but something Ebrahimi said would have been virtually unheard of
just a few years ago.
Both Ebrahimi and Lateiner emphasized the importance of honesty when
approaching movements as people with wealth. While he was involved in Occupy
Boston, Ebrahimi walked around the Dewey Square encampment with a shirt
bearing the words "I am the 1%. I stand with the 99%."
"There was a time when I was scared that anybody with good politics would be
inherently wary of somebody sitting on a pile of gifted money," he recalled.
But being clear about his background from the outset was met with more
excitement than derision. Instead of worrying about being judged by his
fellow occupiers, Ebrahimi "could focus on trying to support a political
moment that I thought was important, making a bunch of new friends and
having all sorts of crazy adventures. It really never had to be an elephant
in the room that I was a rich kid with a foundation."
Meanwhile, Lateiner has started dressing up rather than down in movement
spaces, where being open about his wealth has enabled him to build trust
with working class organizers. "I have to be careful about the way I choose
to speak and behave in those spaces," he said. "But I'm not going to deny
who I am."
While acknowledging the trials of extreme wealth, Lateiner, Ebrahimi and
other forward-thinking heirs are turning to one another for support, not
so-called money psychologists. They take solace, too, in putting their
personal resources to work. "Under a scarcity mentality, we're taught to see
giving as losing something, rather than seeing it as getting to be part of
justice," Lateiner said. And for the wealthy, he added, being a part of
justice means not getting to define it. "I think the best work happens when
people who are funding it get the hell out of the way."
For solutions, they turn to movements. As opposed to Carnegie, this new
breed of philanthropists rejects their so-called "obligations" to
capitalism, and are eager to help build a fundamentally different economy.
"When we respond to the crisis of income inequality, we're really responding
to the crisis of consolidated wealth," Ebrahimi explained. "What that says
to me is that we're trying to create a world in which there is no radically
consolidated wealth. Without that, you don't have any foundations" - or, at
least, any wealth therapists.
Kate Aronoff is an organizer and freelance writer whose writing has been
published in Waging Nonviolence, Dissent Magazine, AlterNet, and the New
York Times. Find her on Twitter at @katearonoff [7].
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [8]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[9]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/alternative-wealth-model-funding-organizing-
and-wealth-redistribution
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/kate-aronoff
[2] http://wagingnonviolence.org/
[3]
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/17/wealth-therapy-tackles-woes-o
f-the-rich-its-really-isolating-to-have-lots-of-money
[4] http://chorusfoundation.org/about/
[5]
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/your-money/estate-planning/what-to-tell-ch
ildren-about-their-bequest-and-when.html
[6] http://www.solidairenetwork.org/
[7] https://twitter.com/KateAronoff
[8] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on The Alternative Wealth
Model: Funding Organizing and Wealth Redistribution
[9] http://www.alternet.org/
[10] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
