“I don't think we talk enough about how money is a tool for and against the movement…” In this juicy conversation about money, Michelle talks with the very quotable Phillip Chavira, about why Capitalism is trash, where white supremacy shows up, why we need to talk openly about racism and where we have power to make decisions that center our communities and our values. You are going to love this conversation!
In this episode, Michelle talks with Phillip Chavira, an award-winning non-profit leader based in the Bay Area of Northern California where he currently is a finance director of Point Reyes National Seashore Association in beautiful West Marin County.
This highly quotable, lifelong advocate for all the things we love, Phillip Chavira can be followed on Instagram @phillipchavira Connect with Phillip on Instagram @phillipchavira and LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/phillipchavira
Phillip can be heard on TheUpNUp where he shares his journey to becoming the first person of color to be an Executive Director for the ’Intiman Theatre’(@intimantheatre). From witnessing the inequalities within the arts early on in life to working his way up to co-producing the Tony Award nominated Broadway play ‘Eclipsed’. Check out “Keep c o l o r on stage”
Learn more about Point Reyes National Seashore Association’s work with the National Park Service and working with local Bay Area nonprofit organizations focused on community building and mentorship primarily in Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) and low-income communities. https://ptreyes.org/youth-in-parks/
References:
- Phillip mentions Vu Le and his blog Nonprofitaf.com as a useful resource and recommends using consultants to help navigate difficult conversations within staff, (including Michelle!)
- Here is a list Phillip created, of things an organization can do to start their journey
- Michelle lists Beneficial State Bank and Amalgamated Bank as two socially responsible banks with social justice related missions…
- Check out The Ethical Rainmaker interview with Heather Infantry, as an example of a badass advocate talking with community foundations about their payouts and inequity
- Phillip mentions The Pride Foundation in Seattle as an example of spending down reserves and becoming share holders of local organizations (around minute 24)
- Spend-down organization aka Sunsetting = When a foundation decides to spend out or spend down all of its assets and close its doors. There is usually a date associated with this term. (see The Chorus Foundation and their plans to sunset)
- POSE is the show Phillip talks about
- Phillip mentions Vu Le and his blog Nonprofitaf.com as a useful resource and recommends using
- We talk about Northwest Immigrant Rights Project as an example of an organization that can never close its doors due to systemic injustice, while other nonprofits can
Stats Dropped:
- 60% of wealth in the US is passed on generationally, mentions Phillip
- between 1983 and 2013, White households saw their wealth increase by 14%, and during that exact same time, Black households’ wealth declined 75%, and then Hispanic households from a median perspective, that wealth declined by half.
- In 2000, the Federal Reserve stopped collecting information on reservations with indigenous houses!
- “One of the scary things I think about with this racial wealth inequality is that if it remains unresolved, if we keep going at this pace, this trend is going to lead to the median household wealth for Black folks in the year 2053 to be zero. We could potentially see that. Then in 2073, it's projected that LatinX households will be at zero for median household wealth. This comes from the Institute for Policy Studies that utilizes the information from the Federal Reserve.”
- 86% of billionaires since the pandemic are now $5.1 trillion dollars richer while 76 million people lost their jobs.
Phillip Recommends These Resources on Race and Money
Brilliant Quotes:
- “Capitalism is just trash. The way that it has evolved over time and how just had it disproportionately affected people a lot by race, it infuriates me and it torments me as I study capitalism. You mentioned the education, and I like that you put that footnote in there...I want to take that and put that on my business card because centering around dollars, I feel that when a human does that, they can exploit others at a cost.
- There's always a cost you gain in that dollar. That dollar was received from your family and it was passed on and how did your family ethically received those dollars, how are organizations making high profits off the backs of Black and Brown people around this world.”
- “I think that what drives me crazy about the fact that we hide from our finances, I do this in our family, I see it in our family, I see it in organizations, I've had executives tell me, "Well, I don't really look at the spreadsheets, I'm told the numbers," and as somebody who looks at the numbers every day, I'm like, "There's so much room for change."
- “...people said make as much money as you possibly can, pay as little as you can, get as much money as the consumers are willing to pay, and it just was driven into a generation where they think that money equates love, money equates success, money equates fame. That's one of the biggest lies that I feel has been applied through entertainment, it has been applied through social media. There's documentaries about how social media has affected us, so this belief that money is going to save the day, is a fallacy. I think that this divide that is going to continue to happen is terrifying and we have to do something about it.”
