BY Eric Phamdo, Senior Program Officer, Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation, and 2024 PLACES Fellow
“We are living in a constant juxtaposition of both horror and joy — and I’m not sure how to navigate that; not in my personal life, and not in the industry that is philanthropy.”
— Marci Ovadia, PLACES Coach and Facilitator.
As the 2024 PLACES Cohort came together for the first time to start our site visit in Denver, Bina M. Patel — our anti-racism facilitator and lead coach — asked, “How are you? What are you bringing in with you today?”
Those two simple yet profound questions allowed our “professional” masks that we often wear in this work to safely come down. Our cohort of philanthropy professionals quickly made space to allow for our full selves to show up and share what we were struggling with; sharing personal caregiving challenges, distress about political chaos, the ongoing terror of watching violence unfold in the Middle East, and the dissonance about the role of philanthropy in both changing and upholding systems of power and oppression. It was a tender and supportive moment in which we could recognize the great privilege we have to work in philanthropy, as well as the emotional burden we take on from our unique viewpoints into community.
“I am a woven person.”
— Cal Duran, Denver Artist
Philanthropy is complex work. Existing in the system and navigating strategic complicity — a term coined by Bina in her book Say The Quiet Part Out Loud — is hard. But PLACES has helped me understand my positionality as both a changemaker and upholder of the system.
So what do we do with this complexity? I keep going back to hope and reflecting on certain glimmers (the opposite of triggers) that stood out to me from my fellow colleagues and mentors while in Denver. I thought I would share them with you as I continue to sit with everything I learned and am still holding.
“Do not internalize the failure of the system. Instead, move into a place of strategic movement. Hone your skills to create movement and progress, instead of constantly fighting.”
— Bina M. Patel
The massive, “wicked” problems facing our society and planet are, to say the least, overwhelming. The emotional crush of experiencing and witnessing injustice and terror, compounded by nonstop media, oftentimes can make us feel powerless and incapacitated. Bina compels us to focus on our own agency to change what we can.
Ask yourself, “What does this forward movement look like? How might my values be demonstrated? What is feeling stuck or hard? And how can that feel differently if you felt liberated and free?”
— Bina M. Patel
How can we change what we can when each path seems implausible? A symptom of oppression or frustration can be limited thinking — to only see the barriers and focus on why things won’t work out. Bina reminds us that our mindset is critically important. The greatest achievements start from a place of liberating dreaming, and if we orient ourselves to this mindset, we can find solutions that were otherwise hidden.
“Hope comes from when you are the agent of change. Hope comes from community. What you bear witness to does not have to be the prevailing outcome.”
— Bina M. Patel
We should never accept the status quo as permanent.
It is both inspiring — that we do the work on behalf of our own communities and families — but also heartbreaking that because of that we may place extraordinary pressure on ourselves to solve it, and feel the extraordinary weight of the challenges. We don’t have time to rest when it’s our lives at stake.
As I sit with all this, I am brought back to closing questions posed by Bina: So what can I do? What can’t I do? What do I need to do to maintain my peace?
“I don’t have the privilege to be tired.”
— Alece Montez, Panelist and PLACES Alum, Co-Executive Director of AJL Foundation
As she so often told us, joy and happiness are not the same. Happiness, and the pursuit of it — it is often deeply rooted in capitalistic norms and measures. Joy, however, instills a greater sense of capacity, energy, and inspiration. It is resilient against the system. There is power, agency, and capacity in joy. I also go back to something Marci shared when speaking to the liminal space that exists in the juxtaposition of joy and horror: the antidote to darkness is transgressive joy.
“I can’t lose hope because my kids are already here.”
“I don’t wish you a good day, I wish you a gentle day.”
— Renée M. Chacon, iDiné/Xicana/Filipina Sahumadora for Kalpulli ColorAztlan, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Womxn from the Mountain
And I now know that in joy, there is healing. We know we have healing to do — but it can be part of the joy, not the sorrow.
So what were my top takeaways when I think of all that I’ve shared above? We must center relationships and repair. We must make space for joy in this work, and we must hone our ability to contend with complexity and act strategically while also having an ethic of care for ourselves and those we serve.
To close, I wanted to share two final quotes from Talissa and Mawish — two incredible women who walked this unimaginable year with us as Muslim women. I want to honor that and reflect on their words that have stayed with me since we left Denver:
“We don’t have to lose our soul to exist within the system.”
— Talissa Lahaliyed, Equity Programs Manager, TFN“Resistance is liberation – and love is embedded in that.”
— Mawish Raza, Pillars Fund and 2024 PLACES Fellow
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