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Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance
Unavailable
Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance
Unavailable
Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance
Ebook235 pages3 hours

Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance

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Decolonizing Wealth is a provocative analysis of the dysfunctional colonial dynamics at play in philanthropy and finance. Award-winning philanthropy executive Edgar Villanueva draws from the traditions from the Native way to prescribe the medicine for restoring balance and healing our divides.
 
Though it seems counterintuitive, the philanthropic industry has evolved to mirror colonial structures and reproduces hierarchy, ultimately doing more harm than good. After 14 years in philanthropy, Edgar Villanueva has seen past the field's glamorous, altruistic façade, and into its shadows: the old boy networks, the savior complexes, and the internalized oppression among the “house slaves,” and those select few people of color who gain access. All these funders reflect and perpetuate the same underlying dynamics that divide Us from Them and the haves from have-nots. In equal measure, he denounces the reproduction of systems of oppression while also advocating for an orientation towards justice to open the floodgates for a rising tide that lifts all boats. In the third and final section, Villanueva offers radical provocations to funders and outlines his Seven Steps for Healing.

With great compassion—because the Native way is to bring the oppressor into the circle of healing—Villanueva is able to both diagnose the fatal flaws in philanthropy and provide thoughtful solutions to these systemic imbalances. Decolonizing Wealth is a timely and critical book that preaches for mutually assured liberation in which we are all inter-connected.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 16, 2018
ISBN9781523097913
Author

Edgar Villanueva

Edgar Villanueva is Founder and Principal of the Decolonizing Wealth Project and an associated fund, Liberated Capital, that supports Indigenous and other people-of-color-led initiatives working for transformative social change. In 2020, the Liberated Capital Fund raised over $3 million across various giving programs. He is an enrolled member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, and serves as chair of the board of directors of Native Americans in Philanthropy and NDN Collective, and is a board member of the Andrus Family Fund. Villanueva is also senior vice president at the Schott Foundation for Public Education.

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Edgar Villanueva is a Native American philanthropist (despite his working class upbringing). This book is written primarily for other philanthropists.Villanueva asks a lot of great questions about wealth, power, and racism. Why do we give people with money power in philanthropy (as opposed to ceding this power to those most intimate with the problems)? White supremacy is a big part of the way that philanthropy works.Villanuava calls out the foundations that ignore the externalities caused by their return-chasing endowments. He also speaks to the importance of grieving—something we generally don't hear a lot about in the workplace.This book feels to me like a bit of a companion text to Anand Giridharadas' "Winners Take All."The title oversells the book for me. Although Villanueva covers a lot of ground in the book, I don't think he accomplishes the task of describing what it might look like to decolonize wealth.I also take serious issue with his claim that money is neutral. Evolution in this arena requires a nuanced language and understanding surrounding the numerous role money play, and the many flavors in which it comes. For example, using gold as money has significant social implications, as opposed to the US dollar or time banking.