The Nonprofit Industrial Complex Needs to Be Composted (Start By Asking: Are We Corporate... or Are We Community-Centric?)

We humans have been caring for our fellow humans since the very beginning of humanity here on Earth…

…just like our instincts that we need each other, and are irrevocably and closely connected to each other, and are responsible for each other, have been with us since we first arrived here too.

I’m going to over-simplify and skim over a lot of history, to get us from contemplating those earliest days of humanity… to now… but I want to fairly quickly take you along the arc of how I believe we got from there… to here.

So.

Let’s swing forward a few gazillion generations.

In my mind, this orientation of taking care of each other, of being responsible for each others’ well-being, began really going downhill with the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Starting in the mid-18th century, and stretching into the mid-19th century, a whole new way of being in this world began to develop.

I look at the lives of some of our most well-known titans of industry — Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller — and how they were both born around the very time that the Industrial Revolution was coming to a head.

These two men embodied the promise of that revolution: never-before-seen monetary wealth and prosperity. They thrived in this model.

See any historical reference to either of these men, and it will very likely refer to him as both an “industrialist” and a “philanthropist.”

In fact, philanthropy as an “industry” could likely be seen as having its seeds within the lives of these two men.

And suddenly, as their model of living and giving spread, philanthropy no longer simply meant a love of humanity, its original meaning, embodied in all kinds of care completely divorced from money… but instead it meant all kinds of money, and it became charity, rather than solidarity.

And then, over time, the most powerful forces governing our shared society — forces like capitalism, patriarchy, and White supremacy — took us even further away from our shared roots of care and solidarity and mutual responsibility.

Look around today, and — I’m sure you’ll agree with me — the world we live in is nothing like how our earliest ancestors lived, most especially in how we relate to each other… and take care of each other (or not).

Those original impulses have been poisoned… and are struggling to stay alive.

Capitalism Got Us Here

How did capitalism help get us here?

Capitalism has trained and conditioned us in SO many powerful ways:

• We think there is never enough — time, money, food… toilet paper… etc.
• We are always focused on all the things we are told we “need”… rather than what we actually need to live our lives… and/or what actually matters, in the end.
• We are continuously trained to believe, and are continuously perpetuating, the lie that we are all out for ourselves — that we need to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, that we are like islands, completely separate from others.
• We are also conditioned with the lie that we get our worth from our work… and not from who we inherently are, just being alive and being human.
• We have been trained to value more… more… MORE as the goal.
• Similarly, we are not apparently successful unless we are overseeing growth… growth… GROWTH. Only growth is good.
• Our conditioning has taught us that hierarchy is the only way to situate ourselves, to structure anything we create.
• Similarly, we have swallowed the lie that “leadership” is always top-down.
• In what has become the “industry” of philanthropy (including nonprofits and fundraising), we have adopted corporate models of marketing, sales, and financial management as the only legitimate ways to run an organization.
• Capitalism has created greater and greater canyons of inequality yawning between the “haves” and the “have-nots”… and we have been conditioned to think of that as just “how things are.” If you look at this reality from the vantage point of our ancestors who cared for all of their neighbors as a matter of course, you can see how bonkers this reality is: why do we have whole segments of our human population that have SO much less than others — and who struggle merely just to survive, while most other humans barely bat an eye?

Patriarchy Got Us Here

How did patriarchy help get us here?

Patriarchy has trained and conditioned us in SO many powerful ways, too:

• Masculine energy rules our ideas of leadership. When we picture a leader — especially a CEO, or a president — our biases will always lean to a man. But I’m not even just talking about a human man, here. I’m talking about masculine energies, which are an entirely different energy and approach than more feminine energies and approaches to leadership — and which can be embodied by any human, or even cultures and whole societies.
• Patriarchy, which in my mind includes the preference and dominance of these masculine energies, affects us in every moment… by the ways it has taught us to relate to each other, by what it has taught us to prioritize: being driven to achieve; focusing on outcomes over process; setting goals that we seek at all costs; moving fast; power is exercised almost always with a power-over dynamic; we focus on the external over the internal, movement over reflection, speaking over listening, doing over being.
• There is a prevailing belief, in our dominant culture globally, that “business” — that bastion of these masculine energies I’m describing — is the most legitimate human enterprise.
• Related to the above, for decades now, nonprofits have been fighting a widespread assumption that they were less legitimate, less smart, less savvy, less effective than businesses… and, as a result, nonprofits have often made the exasperated argument that they WERE businesses. (To me, this has always felt like a plea for legitimacy more than anything else. Note the reality that most nonprofits are in the business of caring for people, animals, the planet, etc. — more energetically feminine endeavors that have always been devalued and de-legitimized in our patriarchal society.)
• This insistence by nonprofits is a double-edged sword. Yes, nonprofits ARE a form of business… but they are an entirely different form of business than the ones that sell a product. And yet, businesses that market and sell a product are the types of business that nonprofits have been modeling their “best practices” after, for a long time now. I mean, why wouldn’t we? If that is supposedly the “best” and most “legitimate” way to do things?

White Supremacy Got Us Here

How did White Supremacy help get us here?

White Supremacy has trained and conditioned us in SO many powerful ways too, perhaps the most powerful ways of all, leaving me to wonder:

• Why are the ones who are struggling the most, in our world, so often brown or Black? Of course, it has nothing to do with any inherent qualities of those people. And knowingly stating the obvious, but needing to be clear: believing so is itself a form of White Supremacy.
• Why are the norms we all are expected to go by the “whitest” — which is to say the most erasing ones? In the most literal sense, whiteness is erasure — or being without any color. And all the ways we are taught to be “professional” in this world are very much about erasing anything that makes us most human (a.k.a. messy, different, colorful, etc.).
• Why are the hierarchies we’ve created in our world always apportioning all the power at the top, where for generations folks with white skin — and by and large those who are male (there’s the patriarchy, again!) — are the ones at the top and holding that power?
• Why do we only give lip-service to diversity… but, in the end, we collectively make the decision to homogenize everything… aiming for assimilation and erasure of any differences, above all else?

Are We Corporate… Or Community-Centric?

Philanthropy once happened without any form of institution (via a much more simple form of community care). Now we have normalized this work happening within institutions or organizations.

And here’s the thing.

Once there’s an institution, the institution starts to take on a life of its own.

Perpetuating the institution becomes a goal, in and of itself.

And do you see how much of a problem that is?

When you look at these orgs that are providing community care, the ones we call “nonprofits,” and you look at the kinds of gnarly societal problems we are addressing through them, we should be aiming for these orgs NOT to exist — because, ideally, we want these PROBLEMS not to exist… which would negate the need for organizations addressing the problems… yes?

This continuous perpetuation… this more is best… this growth at all costs… worldview is the one that has run corporations forever.

Endings are considered anathema.

Natural growth cycles on this Earth, which include death and composting, to fertilize new growth, are not even acknowledged, let alone preferred.

People are not prioritized — not really.

The most people are prioritized is as “human resources” (isn’t that kind of a sick way to see a human, when you think about it?)… or a means to revenue (via sales… or donations)… or as potential staff… or volunteers.

In other words, in this corporate worldview, humans are used by the enterprise… to achieve its goals.

Valuing people just because they are our fellow humans and community members, and they are here… and living and breathing?

Not so much.

SO MANY of the nonprofit orgs I’ve known over the years have leaned far more corporate than community-centric.

And guess what?

This is a continuum that we are all on.

The more corporate we are…

… the less community-centric we are…

… and the more community-centric we are…

… the less corporate we are.

With the birth and growth of the Community-Centric Fundraising Movement over the past few years, I’ve seen people far-too-often embodying a very corporate mindset and way of being (see above)… while those same people are saying that they are practicing community-centrism.

Guess what?

That’s not actually possible.

Community-centrism needs to be a whole new way of being…

… and not just a new set of strategies or tactics.

You cannot really practice community-centrism without some major transformation and change, in how you ARE more than anything… and thus, in HOW you go about the work you’re doing.

You cannot practice community-centrism…

… and run rough-shod over people in the process…

… or prioritize moving fast, over prioritizing people and their well-being…

… or see other organizations, or people, as competition…

… or not adequately compensate people, in exchange for the huge value they bring…

… or relate to people in very surface-level ways, without genuinely caring about their entire being (body, heart, mind, and spirit) and their holistic wellness…

… or continue to prioritize dollar goals above all else.

That last one is a tough one to stomach, especially when as a fundraiser you’ve been trained to think of the money as your job.

But here’s the thing.

Money is a tool.

Money is not even real.

Think about it. Even cash is just some paper and some metal that we’ve imbued with special meaning. And these days, “money” is more often just a string of zeroes and ones in some software, displayed on a screen as a digital number.

“Money” is a stand-in.

And what does it stand in for?

What we value.

We assign value, through this thing we call money, and then we exchange that value with other people for other things we value.

This should be a fairly simple process.

But we’ve muddied the waters, over the generations.

We’ve started to mix up what’s actually valuable… with what only stands in for value.

How have we gotten so confused?

Why would we value a stand-in for value… before our fellow humans, who have value inherently, without having to do or be anything to earn it… and are the only thing that really matters, in the end?

We can survive this life without money…

… as long as we have other humans with whom we are in community… and who will support us and help us.

We can technically survive this life without being in community…

… as long as we have money to help us pay for satisfying all of our needs…

… but is that even a real human life? Or at least a desirable one?

When we get to the end of our lives, will the money we earned and spent matter most to us… or will the relationships, the love that we gave and received?

So again, I ask:

What is actually most valuable to us?

Isn’t it other people?

Relationships?

Our fellow humans?

Loving and being loved by them?

Community?

I hope those are your answers.

And if they are…

Are you reflecting these values in how you work? How you move about the world? How you enact… this thing we call philanthropy?

If you realize that you are leaning more towards a “corporate” approach, rather than the “community” end of the spectrum… don’t fret.

Change is possible.

That is just good data for you.

And I hope you can use that data to discern the ways to transform how you are…

… so that your prioritization of people, and community, is clear in ALL you do — and, most importantly, in HOW you do it.

May it be so.

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