We must move from despair to righteous anger

Hi everyone, I’ve been reeling the past several days after the elections, as I’m sure many of you have been and still are. I found myself unmotivated and uninspired, dealing with waves of dread and anxiety. Luckily, the those waves were often beaten back by even bigger waves of fear and despair! Sorry, maybe now is not the time to joke around. Or maybe it is; I don’t know. I’m still a jumble of thoughts and emotions and stress eating, so thank you for your patience, as it might take me a while to get back to my usual self.

I do say though, that the past week reaffirmed to me how amazing community is. I am lucky to be surrounded by so many incredible people. Dozens of friends and colleagues reached out, checking in on me, the ones in Seattle getting me off the couch, reminding me that we’re not alone, and that the world is still full of good people.

Thanks to you, I am moving out of despair…and into anger. Righteous anger. The kind that Desmond Tutu described here:

“Righteous anger is usually not about oneself. It is about those whom one sees being harmed and whom one wants to help. In short, righteous anger is a tool of justice, a scythe of compassion, more than a reactive emotion. Although it may have its roots deep in our fight-or-flight desire to protect those in our family or group who are threatened, it is a chosen response and not simply an uncontrollable reaction. And it is not about one’s own besieged self-image, or one’s feelings of separation, but of one’s collective responsibility, and one’s feeling of deep, empowering connection.”

This is where I think we should all start moving. We need to be angry at the audacity of this administration and the horrible things it plans to do. We need to be angry at all the politicians who support and enable this fascist and his corrupt cronies. We need to be angry so we do not give them a moment of peace in their quest to destroy democracy and inflict cruelty on people and communities.

Meanwhile, we also need to be angry at certain failings in our sector. Chief among them, our penchant for “white moderation.” For so long we’ve bought into this nice sort of way of operating that prioritizes getting along and not ruffling feathers. This is why we’ve lost our imagination and keep putting up with bullshit, which prevents us from doing our work effectively.

Even when Trump was elected the first time and wrecked all that destruction, we were still mired in doing things the way we always did them. As soon as he was elected in 2016, I wrote this article, “In the Trump Era, Nonprofits Need a New Social Contract with Foundations.”

It’s demoralizing and enraging to know that eight years after that article was written, we find ourselves in the same situation, with very little having changed among funders. Some things have actually gotten worse, as we see from the growing nominations to Crappy Funding Practices.

Concurrently, among nonprofits there is still the same timidness in pushing against a ridiculous system that asks us to tackle some of society’s most entrenched problems with a tenth of the resources we need.

We must channel our righteous anger so we can cut through all the crap and be more effective at our job of advancing equity and justice. I’m too emotionally exhausted right now to be coherent about how we go about doing that, so please add your thoughts in the comments. But a few things come to mind:

Funders, almost everything I said in the above article still rings true. You should be just as angry as nonprofit leaders that things haven’t changed. Organize yourselves and your colleagues better! Funders need to significantly increase how much they give out, stop your bullshit bureaucracy and trust nonprofits more so they can do their work, fund orgs led by marginalized communities more and in significant amounts, fund community organizing and advocacy, increase funding for leadership development, take the lead from communities most affected by injustice, support responsible media and journalism, and take bigger and bolder risks.

In addition, we need funders to get together and start legal defense funds to protect leaders and organizations who will face significantly more risks as they speak up against the horrors soon to be unleashed by this coming administration. Trump had warned that he will start criminalizing and punishing protests, which are one of the most effective tools we have against fascism.

Nonprofits, do more organizing and have bigger, bolder visions. If there’s one light in this horrible tunnel, it’s that society might see our work is now more critical and relevant than ever. Use this opportunity and any incoming influx of funding to mobilize communities and push through some ambitious projects. Push back on funders’ and donors’ shenanigans and demand they do more, fund more, and trust more.

I don’t know what the future holds, but it will require all of us—nonprofits and funders and everyone else—at our best, with all the resources and trust we need to effectively protect our communities and one another. Take some time to grieve if you need to, but we need to get angry, and to use that righteous anger to cut through all the bullshit that’s prevalent in our sector so we can be at our best for the fights to come.