Last Updated
May 1, 2020
Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Edgar Villanueva. [Live show recorded: April 28, 2020.]
Guest: Edgar Villanueva
Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin
Guest
EDGAR VILLANUEVA is a globally-recognized expert on social justice philanthropy. Edgar serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of Native Americans in Philanthropy, NDN Collective, and is a Board Member of the Andrus Family Fund, a national foundation that works to improve outcomes for vulnerable youth.
Edgar currently serves as Senior Vice President at the Schott Foundation for Public Education where he oversees grant investment and capacity building supports for education justice campaigns across the United States.
Edgar is the award-winning author of Decolonizing Wealth, a bestselling book offering hopeful and compelling alternatives to the dynamics of colonization in the philanthropic and social finance sectors.
In addition to working in philanthropy for many years, he has consulted with numerous nonprofit organizations and national and global philanthropies on advancing racial equity inside of their institutions and through their investment strategies.
Edgar holds two degrees from the Gillings Global School of Public Health at The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Edgar is an enrolled member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina and resides in Brooklyn, NY.
Transcript
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck. Live, the morning-ish show. On today's episode, Lauren Ruffin and I are joined by Edgar Villanueva. Edgar is a globally recognized expert on social justice philanthropy. He currently serves as senior vice president at the Schott Foundation for Public Education where he oversees grant investments and capacity building support for education justice campaigns across the US. Edgar is also an award-winning author of Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom To Heal, Divides And Restore Balance, a bestselling book offering hopeful and compelling alternatives to the dynamics of colonization in the philanthropic and social finance sectors and Liberated Capitol a decolonizing wealth fund is a giving circle created by Edgar that's online at grapevine.org. To date, their Native American community response fund for COVID has already raised nearly $400,000. We have so much to discuss today, so without further ado, Edgar, welcome to the show.
Edgar Villanueva:
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.
Tim Cynova:
Lauren, this is when you take the first question.
Lauren Ruffin:
Sorry, I had a weird glitch on my screen. Hi, Edgar. Good morning.
Edgar Villanueva:
Hey, good morning, ish.
Lauren Ruffin:
Oh yeah, it's good morning for me. Almost good afternoon for y'all. So one of the questions we've been asking all of our guests just to ground us, is how are you and how's your community doing?
Edgar Villanueva:
For me personally, it's day to day. I am fortunate to have a job in these times that I can work from home. So I'm grateful for that. I live in Brooklyn, New York, and I'm very fortunate to have a backyard, which is a rare thing here. So I do have moments where I can have some outdoor time there. So it's day to day, I think like everyone, I have my moments of personal anxiety and fear and just sadness. I'm holding a lot of grief around what's happening here in New York City, but also just around the world. My community in particular, it's what's causing me a lot of pain. You guys have probably seen the headlines, native communities across the country are greatly impacted and especially right now in the southwest, with the Navajo nation and the Pueblos across New Mexico. So I'm daily tracking and checking in with people there and doing everything I can to help from here in New York to support these communities.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah, we've noticed that some of our guests, and Tim gave us the background on your bio and told us some things about you, but a lot of our guests and how they introduce themselves has shifted a little bit. So how are you introducing yourself right now and what are you thinking is your primary means of working in service right now?
Edgar Villanueva:
I think the way I would introduce myself is sharing who my people are. Where I'm from originally in North Carolina, we say, "Who's your people?" When we meet someone new. My people for the most part are black and brown indigenous people who are on the side of justice, fighting for social justice and liberation, those progressive white brothers and sisters and relatives that are a part of this struggle as well. I work often in and around spaces of philanthropy, and really find myself connected to and building community with people who are organizing and resources for community. So I get up every day with a passion for moving money specifically into communities of color and native communities.
Edgar Villanueva:
I think of myself as someone from the south, that's a big part of my identity. I am from North Carolina. I'm an enrolled member of the Lumbee Tribe, which is the largest, a native American tribe east of the Mississippi river. I think of myself as a spiritual person and as a person that is really connected to community and a person who's committed to healing in my own life, but also helping to support healing in others.
Tim Cynova:
You wrote Decolonizing Wealth and I want to thank personally for taking the time to write that book, I read it last fall when I was traveling to Grantmakers in the Arts Conference in Denver. Most of the sessions were focused on social justice, racial equity, and then I flew immediately to the Conscious Capitalism CEO Summit outside of Austin, Texas. Your book has been deeply meaningful in my own journey in anti-racism, anti-oppression and then to sit with the ideas, having arrived at Grantmakers in the Arts and then go to Conscious Capitalism and take my colleagues' thoughts with me from ... when I told them at Grantmakers in the Arts where I was going. I'm wondering for those who haven't read it, if you can talk about what led you to write the book and maybe how have some of the ideas that you put in the book have evolved or changed in light of current events?
Lauren Ruffin:
So I think what led me to write the book. It's interesting, a lot of folks have approached me, they think they may want to write a book. I think personally for me, writing a book is a calling, I felt like I had a story inside of me that had to come out, that it wasn't even a choice, I had to get it out. I think what was driving that was just my personal experience as a Native American person who had found themselves working in this crazy world of institutional philanthropy, which is a mystery to a lot of folks. I came from poverty. I came from a position of not having a lot of power and then when I got into this field, I automatically was at the table with a lot of power and a lot of access to resources and in a place that has this facade of doing good in the world.
Lauren Ruffin:
I initially thought early on in my work that, while this is ... how I'm very fortunate to be a part of this sector that's so aligned with wanting to make change in the world, all I ever want to do in life, was make a difference. There's so much that transpired in my career and in my journey, where I began to be really disillusioned about the role of philanthropy in the sector and I just begin uncovering other parts of our work that are hidden away and began to just what the net value of this work was in actuality. I experienced a lot of pain personally and then I saw that a lot of people like me, especially people of color, women, queer folks, people coming from marginalized backgrounds, found it very difficult to work in this space and often did not last very long. I began just journaling about my own experiences and my pain, and trying to find meaning in doing this work.
Lauren Ruffin:
Should I be in this field? Is there another place where I'm actually supposed to be? Is this legitimate? And just really through that process of journaling and having conversations with a lot of people who've got a shared experience, I realized, "Well, I think there's a story here." Where it really began to become clear to me is that the experience that I had, this is so much about money and it is so much about philanthropy and the nonprofit sector, but is actually a shared experience across sectors and for many people in the world. In wanting to get to a place of real change, real transformation, what are the lies that we're telling ourselves and what is the truth that's hidden away that we need to bring to the surface, to really grapple with once or for all, if we're really going to move forward as philanthropy, as institutions that could be in a right relationship with community, but also just as people in community and as people that live in this country that has yet to go through that type of process?
Lauren Ruffin:
I don't know, I think in short, it was writing the book was my own healing journey. Where I landed with the book is not where I thought I was going to land. It was going to be something very different, but my own experience of healing throughout writing that process began to steer me toward a different vision for what I wanted to offer the sector.
Tim Cynova:
I mean there's so much that resonated with me. One of the things that I have held is philanthropy have often investment portfolios that support the 5% that then they give out and the ... It's not a dichotomy, it's the tension between where you might be investing, it could be 95% undermining the money that you're giving out and we're seeing this increasingly responsible investing. Where are you putting your money to make sure that it's in line with your values as an organization? Certainly from our own standpoint at Fractured Atlas thinking where we've invested, does it align with our anti-racism, anti-oppression commitments, and how can we move toward that, has been something that certainly is, well, it was [inaudible 00:08:24]. So I'll end the part at where I talked about how excited I was to read your book and how cool it is to have you on our show. So Lauren, you can take us in a different direction now.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah, you're totally nerding out, I [crosstalk 00:08:33] that.
Tim Cynova:
I am, this is the [inaudible 00:08:34] look.
Lauren Ruffin:
You are absolutely geeking out right now.
Edgar Villanueva:
Love it.
Tim Cynova:
If you cannot have a live stream where you get to hang out with cool people who you always wanted to meet, what's the purpose of a live stream?
Lauren Ruffin:
Throw the live stream in the trash if you can't do that.
Tim Cynova:
Very much so.
Lauren Ruffin:
The transfer of wealth thing resonates with me as a former fundraiser or retired fundraiser, whatever I am, because we're seeing right now in so much of the recovery stimulus package, CARES Act, that we're seeing hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth transfer from the federal government and the latest data I think says that probably at least 90% of that is going to wealthy white people and I think our audience is really going to have to grapple with that reality because I think businesses that we care about are going to just be gone and people that we love are not going to be employed and there's just so much fantastic work that's going to be lost as this wealth is transferred. Do you have any words around strategies that we can use to start to recover from this, or to even grapple with how this is happening in the United States yet again?
Edgar Villanueva:
Money always tells a story and I've had people that say, "Wealth isn't just about money. What about other kinds of wealth?" I do think of wealth more broadly, but money is this very tangible thing that really tells a story about where our values are and what we care about, budgets are story. So historically, the way that money has been used reflects how people in power think and feel about people of color and indigenous people. Philanthropy, where money goes and where it doesn't go also paints a picture on what is really important. Regardless of what we say on our website, or what our missions are, the money tells the story of what life we're really about. When I think in the stimulus packages, you see the same thing happening in terms of who was prioritized in these relief efforts.
Edgar Villanueva:
We see first and foremost that corporations ... First, corporations then small businesses and then people and then tribes, right?
Lauren Ruffin:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Edgar Villanueva:
Indigenous communities are at the very bottom. So I think for folks who hold access to resources are the gatekeepers to these resources, where they make decisions around where to put the money is just a direct reflection of what's really important to them and what they care about. It's obvious when you look at the big picture of how capital was moving through the world, in general, there is a disconnection from people and a disconnection from the planet and it's a separation-based economy. So the only response to that that I have is I think we have to have a fundamental shift in our world view and our values and maybe the silver lining in this pandemic, my hope is that this situation has shook us to our core to wake us up, to help us remember what's really important.
Edgar Villanueva:
What is really important? Right now, there's a lot of things that I thought were important six months ago that I do not care about right now. I thought it was important to step out of my house, dressed to the nines like in the [inaudible 00:11:26]. Right now, I don't care about that. I could care less what ...
Lauren Ruffin:
You still look good.
Edgar Villanueva:
Well thank you, thank you. Don't you feel like even celebrities and people that we tend to track, where are they right now? None of that stuff, seeing everything feels so superficial. What seems most important in this moment is that we take care of people and that we survive this pandemic together. I hope in some small way, that that awakening for some people sticks and that we figure out and understand that the inequalities that have been exposed to this pandemic are unacceptable and that there is a different way that we can show up as leaders in community, as folks who have the responsibility to care for the public, that we can learn from the failures and begin to design a different type of future that does center people and the planet. That's my hope and prayer and the only way I see us getting out of this and not repeating that cycle over and over in the future.
Tim Cynova:
Speaking about the designing of the future, we talk a lot on this live stream about the workplace and what's happening right now with so many people so unprepared as organizations to now be working remote and I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about your work at the Schott Foundation, because you're working in education justice and at the same time that we're seeing this from workplaces, we're also seeing schools, where people are wrestling with both of these at the same time. Sorry, I just had a puppy whining at the door, so train of thought, Tim. Wonder if you could talk about what you're doing right now, hopes for the future there and how can we use this time to build that future that works for everyone, not just for some?
Edgar Villanueva:
Schools are communities too and they're very, very important communities. I think of schools as really some of the remaining institutions in our communities that represent our democracy. The right to a quality public education is one of the fundamental rights of our democracy and it's sad to me that that is actually under attack. What I'm hearing and seeing from our partners at the Schott Foundation right now is who have been fighting to preserve that right to a education for all kids in this country. I've been hearing that a lot of the challenges facing communities, especially communities of color that we focus on and prioritize in our work, that kids are not having access to food of course, that ... where feeding was happening in schools. Kids not having access to mental health support and safe places, young people not having the resources and the technology and the equipment they need to do this distance learning.
Edgar Villanueva:
So a lot of the challenges that young people of color are already facing in trying to have access to the same rights and privileges as others have been exacerbated in this moment. The folks that we support at the Schott Foundation are the parents, the students, the teachers who organize and are working to build power in communities to ensure that communities of color and parent voice and student voice, those voices are at the table when decisions are being made about our young people. So my concern is in this moment, is that we're being distracted of course by this emergency and this crisis, which is critical as something we have to do. But we also have to watch because in every disaster, disaster capitalism. This happened in New Orleans right after Katrina, where private charters came in and completely dismantled the education system there and privatized it and folks with corporate agendas.
Edgar Villanueva:
So I'm very concerned at this moment what could be happening and what plans are being put in place to erode public education in this country and to look at our young people as commodities, or to look at dismantling these institutions of democracy in our communities that, especially for communities of color, they are our homes and lives such a critical part of our identity and a place where we feel safe. So that's what we're thinking about at Schott right now. It's both the immediate response, what do we need to do right now to make sure that young people are okay and safe and have food and have the equipment to continue their learning? But also working with our advocacy partners and our network to understand what do we need to be thinking about right now when kids get ready to return to school, hopefully in the fall. What type of schools are they going to be coming into? What type of supports will they need as a result of this additional trauma that has been placed on them and how do we continue to fight for the right to public education when there is a movement that's trying to dismantle that?
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah, I think that's spot on, in particular linkage to the rise of the charter movement in New Orleans after Katrina, that was super wild. In terms of knowledge, my wife works for the public education department here in New Mexico, we've been talking a lot about what kids learn in school and when. Full disclosure, I'm a total prepper so I'm a survivalist, freak out person. So she's like, "Great. Lauren's got something to really sink her teeth into on this one." But when you spoke last year at Native Women Lead and I was there and listened. It was the first time I had heard you speak, I was really ... and I hold onto this idea that you shared around indigenous wisdom being something that so many of us are looking for right now. Even if we don't know that's what it is. I was wondering if you could share a little bit more about that stream of thought, in particular because as a lifelong learner, we talk about K through 12 and then higher ed, but there is this sort of lifelong relationship with each other and with the planet, that I think is particularly important right now.
Edgar Villanueva:
Absolutely. For me, as a native person who did not grow up in my community, I grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. I was the only native in my school. I didn't really know any other Native Americans outside my immediate family until I got to college. I have been on this quest for many, many years to reconnect and to be Indian enough. Is there something I've missed by this experience? Frankly, I had internalized dominant culture or white dominant ways of being in so many ways because of the society that we live in, frankly. It's funny, as I was writing the book, I spent a lot of time talking to elders and really trying to get to what are those nuggets of indigenous wisdom that I need to understand and practice in my own life? What did I perhaps miss because I didn't grow up on a reservation, or in a native community in that way.
Edgar Villanueva:
As I was learning some of these ... hearing these stories and jotting down these pieces of wisdom, I understood in that moment that that wisdom has always been with me because it was in my body. I had inherited these ideas, I had just lost my way. So part of the call to understand indigenous wisdom is the invitation to everyone to return to your original instructions.
Edgar Villanueva:
When you look back in your own family's history, regardless of where you come from, what I have found is that many of us have a shared sense of values and a way of being that was communal, that was tribal, that was about ensuring that we were all cared for and that was handed down to all of us. Somewhere along the way, we've lost those identities, the idea of all my relations, that we are all inherently connected and that our interdependence is inescapable.
Edgar Villanueva:
We've lost our way with that because we've assimilated to this idea of being American and individual and ideas of competition. So it's not like we have, or I have, these secrets over here that we're not telling anybody that are like ... It's a worldview to that I think we all can share and it goes back to our own families and it simply just comes down to like really placing people as the center of everything we do and understanding ideas like seven generations. Every decision that I make today impacts generations to come for seven generations.
Edgar Villanueva:
If we actually hold that value and that mindset that wow, my decisions will impact people outside of my immediate family for generations to come, every choice I make impacts others, every choice I make impacts this planet. That's a whole nother lens to [inaudible 00:19:39] in how we show up in the decisions that we make.
Edgar Villanueva:
We have subscribed to this false way of being where we think if it's not happening in my backyard and it doesn't impact me. That's why corporations can dump toxic waste right down the street and sleep just fine at night because, "Oh, it's not in my backyard, it doesn't impact me." Well, we all know that the toxic waste of getting into the water that we all drink and we're all going to die because of it. Because regardless of our backgrounds, we are all connected.
Edgar Villanueva:
So those are the nuggets of indigenous wisdom that I share in the book and bring to life through storytelling and really understanding a process that we can engage on personally to remember our original instructions.
Tim Cynova:
Thank you. I want to combine both a viewer question and a question about the Native American Community Response Fund. So, viewer question, curious about the processes of requesting and receiving funding, which tend to favor large organizations with staff and capacity to complete that process. So the question is what are you changing to open the door wider? The other question is, as it relates to funding, and what is the Native American Community Response Fund and how does it work? I would just put those two questions together as we're making decisions that do influence seven generations from now.
Edgar Villanueva:
I think in two ways, I'm trying to make a difference. One is being a disruptor in this space, speaking truth to power and really pushing philanthropy when inviting philanthropy into a loving conversation about the reality of all the barriers and things that are in place that are prohibiting the flow of resources to organizations that are deemed to not have the capacity, which is a whole nother thing. So we know within philanthropy, only 8% of grants actually go to communities of color. So I am challenging my colleagues in this space, through my work at the Schott Foundation, through my work with Decolonizing Wealth, to hold up a mirror and do that hard work of where am I perpetuating a colonizer mindset, or colonial dynamics that are inherent in this system that have to be dismantled in order to liberate those resources and move money to where the hurt is the worst? Which for me is in communities of color.
Edgar Villanueva:
The other thing, part two of my response would be, we need to find ways to move faster and to just move capital into communities of color today. We don't have the luxury to sit back for people to catch up and understand and think about it and especially when by far, the folks who are making those decisions in philanthropy are still white men. So I'm pushing folks to get on their own learning journeys and do this work and shift our grantmaking practices and bring DEI all the way around into your work. But at the same time, look for these opportunities to move capital now. There are people of color led organizations and institutions and philanthropic intermediaries, like the Schott Foundation, like what I'm doing with this Native Response Fund, who already have the analysis and have the relationships to move that money in a way that centers community and justice today.
Edgar Villanueva:
So one example, as you mentioned Tim, we are running a rapid response fund to support native communities through Decolonizing Wealth called the Native American Community Response Fund, and what I say with this fund ... Well let me just say that the fund is about supporting native-led organizations who are on the front lines responding, providing relief, providing support. So food, housing, shelter, access to medical care, the whole nine yards and we're funding across the US, we began looking in the urban centers where we have large native populations supporting there and as a pandemic has shifted and now the nation Navajo is now a hotspot, we're moving resources there as well. What I would say about Liberating Capital, which is the giving circle that we have at Decolonizing Wealth supporting this fund, is that this is not about charity, this is about solidarity.
Edgar Villanueva:
So going right back to what we've been talking about, we're not asking for a handout in our communities. We are extending a lifeline into your own humanity and into your own liberation and healing by giving to our communities. I think this transfer of wealth is helping to reset a balance of power and resources that will help our communities in the long term have what we need through a self-determined process to survive and sustain ourselves. We often get caught up on thinking about a good grant and an effective grant and as you were saying at the start of the show Tim, that 5%, I want the 95%. I want your grant and I also want capital. I want folks to divest from these harmful and destructive industries and actually write large checks out of their endowments and hand that money over to these natives and black and Latino and other communities of color led intermediaries that are doing this work already embedded in community. That's the way that we decolonize wealth and shift wealth in a way that is closing the race wealth gap.
Tim Cynova:
God, yes. We've got some affirmative comments on the YouTube chat and we also are coming up on time. So one last question, any parting thoughts as we come in to land the plane now?
Edgar Villanueva:
We're out of time, so please check out the website, decolonizingwealth.com, information about the fund is there and I just encourage everyone to start their journey. This is not about whether or not you work in philanthropy or a nonprofit sector. We are all called to be leaders and agents of change and it starts with our families. We need to do this work of healing as individuals. We need to do it with our families and we need to do it with each other. So everyone, I'm asking you to have grace toward your fellow human beings during this crazy time, spread the love and find some way to get involved in supporting in this moment. We heal through giving and so I've found my sustainability and healing in this moment is by running these funds and knowing that I'm doing my part to give back and to help take care of others and so that's what we've all got to do in this moment.
Tim Cynova:
Thank you so much for being on the episode. If you didn't know, a huge honor to have you on the episode. Again, Decolonizing Wealth, Edgar's book is available, go to the website. Thank you so much for taking time to spend some of it with us this morning.
Edgar Villanueva:
Absolutely. Thank you again for having me on.
Tim Cynova:
Continue. The Work. Shouldn't. Suck. Live adventure with us on our next episode, when we're joined by Deana Haggag, president and CEO of United States Artists. Missed us in the meantime? You can download more Work. Shouldn't. Suck. episodes from your favorite podcasting platform of choice and re-watch Work. Shouldn't. Suck. live episodes over on workshouldntsuck.co. If you've enjoyed the conversation, or are just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up, or a five stars, or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. If you didn't enjoy this chat, please tell someone about it who you don't like as much. Until next time, thanks for listening.
The podcast is available for free on your favorite podcasting platforms:
Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS Feed
If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover the podcast.