My entire career has been in the nonprofit sector. Early on, I did a lot of work with health equity and was politicized around β¦ mostly people of color not having access to information and services to save their lives.
I ultimately found my way into philanthropy. It led me to write a book. Writing the book for me was about connecting to my culture and my community and remembering those indigenous values and the traditional instructions to make me really the kind of leader that I want to be.
Historical colonization, which began years ago, has led to separation and division in communities and has led to certain groups having wealth and other groups not having wealth, and those dynamics show up in philanthropy β¦ When you begin to examine the wealth that exists with a lot of foundations and a lot of people that have a lot of wealth and are philanthropists, people of color have played significant roles originally, of course, from slavery and genocide and taking land.
Grants that are invested into communities, only about 7. Can you explain how that works? EV: This came about for me because I had been working in philanthropy and was starting to feel a bit disillusioned β¦ A part of that, I think, was having internalized messages around money and it being something that was evil, or dirty, or corrupt.
I had an elder say to me, from my community, that the medicine that had chosen me was money. In indigenous culture β¦ anything can be medicine that is actually something that makes people whole or inspires you or helps you to show up as your best self β¦ If the accumulation of wealth in this country has resulted in a lot of trauma β¦ can wealth actually have a role in helping to heal?
