Decolonizing Wealth

1. Money is inherently value-neutral and can be used as medicine to restore balance.

Money should be a tool of love, to facilitate relationships, to help us thrive, rather than to hurt and divide us.

Redefining money's purpose. Money is not inherently evil; rather, it is a human-made concept designed to measure value and facilitate relationships. When hoarded or used to dominate, it becomes toxic, but when aligned with sacred, restorative intentions, it can function as medicine. In Indigenous traditions, medicine is anything that restores harmony and balance to a system.

The relational nature of exchange. At its core, money represents a proxy for human effort, trust, and mutual obligation. When we shift our perspective from accumulation to circulation, we can begin to heal the trauma caused by economic exploitation.

• Money acts as a placeholder for human relationships and shared trust.
• Indigenous medicine is about restoring harmony, not just curing physical disease.
• Decolonizing wealth means using money to mend divided communities.

A tool for collective healing. By viewing money as a life-giving resource like water, we can redirect its flow to where the pain is most acute. This requires us to stop treating money as an instrument of division and start treating it as a vehicle for love and reconciliation.

2. Modern philanthropy and finance are deeply infected with the colonizer virus of exploitation.

What remains unexamined with those kinds of reforms are frank conversations about where that wealth came from, why it’s held back from public coffers, how it’s invested as an endowment, and who gets to manage, allocate, and spend it.

The colonizer virus. The modern financial and philanthropic sectors are built on a foundation of settler colonialism, which operates on the mantra of divide, control, and exploit. This systemic disease concentrates wealth in the hands of a privileged few while forcing marginalized communities to beg for scraps.

Historical roots of wealth. Much of the wealth held in modern foundations and banks was generated through the historical exploitation of Indigenous lands and enslaved labor. This accumulation of capital is sustained by shielding assets from public taxes and investing them in harmful industries.

• Settler colonialism requires erasing original inhabitants to legitimize land theft.
• The "ivory towers" of finance are designed to preserve privilege and maintain distance from real-world suffering.
• Over 90% of foundation leaders and high-level financial managers are white.

Systemic white supremacy. White supremacy serves as the structural justification for this unequal distribution of resources. To truly transform these systems, we must confront the uncomfortable truth of how our financial institutions continue to perpetuate colonial dynamics.

3. Superficial diversity initiatives result in tokenism and force assimilation into white supremacy culture.

Having a seat at the table is not the same as feeling free to speak in your own voice, to offer your own divergent ideas, to bring your full self to bear on the work.

The illusion of inclusion. Many institutions attempt to address racial disparities through superficial diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. However, simply bringing people of color into white-dominated spaces without shifting the underlying power dynamics only results in tokenism.

The pressure to assimilate. Tokenized professionals of color are often forced to adopt the cultural norms of white supremacy—such as perfectionism, defensiveness, and paternalism—to survive. This assimilation strips them of their unique perspectives and forces them to play a role rather than bring their authentic selves to the work.

• DEI initiatives often focus on "pipeline" recruitment rather than cultural transformation.
• Tokenized employees face intense scrutiny and are often treated as replaceable.
• White supremacy culture values written words and objective metrics over lived experience.

The cost of conformity. When organizations demand assimilation, they miss out on the innovative, resilient strategies that marginalized communities possess. True equity requires dismantling the colonial table entirely and building a new one based on mutual respect.

4. The traditional funding process establishes a harmful savior-victim dynamic that strips grantees of dignity.

Almost without exception, funders reinforce the colonial division of Us vs. Them, Haves vs. Have Nots, and mostly white saviors and white experts vs. poor, needy, urban, disadvantaged, marginalized, at-risk people (take your pick of euphemisms for people of color).

The savior complex. Philanthropy and aid organizations often operate with a savior mentality, positioning wealthy donors as experts and heroes while treating grantees as passive, needy victims. This dynamic reinforces the colonial division of "Us vs. Them" and strips communities of their agency.

Transactional gatekeeping. The process of applying for grants and loans is often demeaning, requiring organizations to jump through arbitrary hoops and prove their worthiness. Funders frequently prioritize short-term, measurable returns over the long-term, complex work of community healing.

• Grantees are forced to "shuck and jive" during site visits to appease wealthy donors.
• Foundations rarely provide general operating support, preferring to fund siloed, short-term projects.
• Less than 8% of philanthropic funding is directed specifically to communities of color.

Dismantling the drama. To break this cycle, funders must move away from transactional gatekeeping and embrace relational partnerships. This means trusting communities to design their own solutions and providing them with the unrestricted resources needed to thrive.

5. Internalized oppression causes marginalized individuals to replicate colonial control and gatekeeping.

One of the darkest, most insidious results of the trauma of racism and colonization is internalized oppression.

The cycle of trauma. When individuals live within a systemic structure of white supremacy, they often unconsciously absorb and adopt the mindset of the oppressor. This internalized oppression manifests as self-doubt, perfectionism, and, most destructively, lateral violence against members of their own group.

Gatekeeping and scarcity. In elite spaces where opportunities for marginalized people are scarce, tokenized individuals may become protective of their positions. Instead of lifting others up, they may act as gatekeepers, replicating the abusive, controlling behaviors of the colonizer.

• Internalized oppression leads to the "shiny new penny syndrome," where peers are viewed as threats.
• Marginalized leaders may police the behavior and language of their own community members to appease white institutions.
• The trauma of colonization is passed down epigenetically, affecting how we relate to power and wealth.

Healing the inner divide. Overcoming internalized oppression is a crucial step in the decolonization process. It requires us to recognize how we have been infected by the colonizer virus and to actively choose solidarity and mutual support over competition.

6. Decolonized leadership is collective, adaptive, and relational, moving away from the command-and-control pyramid.

Adaptation reduces exhaustion.

The limits of hierarchy. Traditional organizations rely on a rigid, top-down pyramid structure governed by command-and-control leadership. This model, rooted in the industrial revolution, concentrates power at the top and treats workers at the bottom as interchangeable cogs.

The wisdom of the flock. Decolonized leadership draws inspiration from natural systems, such as a flock of migrating birds. In this model, leadership is shared, adaptive, and relational, with individuals taking turns leading to prevent collective exhaustion.

• Command-and-control leadership is rigid, transactional, and driven by fear.
• Collective leadership values the micro-adaptations and real-time feedback of the entire group.
• Decolonized organizations prioritize horizontal power-sharing and cooperative ownership.

Embracing the both/and. Moving away from the pyramid requires us to trust the collective intelligence of our teams. By fostering a culture of vulnerability, humility, and mutual care, we can build resilient organizations capable of navigating complex challenges.

7. True healing requires us to grieve historical trauma and apologize sincerely for systemic harms.

A genuine apology focuses on the feelings of the other rather than on how the one who is apologizing is going to benefit in the end.

The necessity of grief. Healing from the trauma of colonization cannot occur without a deep, collective reckoning with the pain of the past. Both the colonized and the colonizers must allow themselves to feel the weight of historical atrocities, land theft, and cultural erasure.

The power of apology. A sincere apology is not about easing the guilt of the perpetrator; it is about taking full responsibility for the harm caused and validating the suffering of the victim. It clears the air and lays the groundwork for restoring broken human connections.

• Grieving requires moving past denial, numbness, and defensiveness to feel the pain of history.
• Sincere apologies do not seek to erase the past or avoid legal and financial accountability.
• Truth and reconciliation processes help societies transition from trauma to collective healing.

Reconnecting the fragments. By creating safe spaces for grief and vulnerability within our institutions, we can begin to digest the bitterness of our shared history. This emotional labor is essential for dismantling the walls of separation and building a culture of belonging.

8. We must listen to excluded voices and share decision-making power through authentic representation.

“If you want to learn, you have to give up talking,”

Proximity to the pain. Those who have been most excluded and exploited by our economic systems possess the precise wisdom needed to repair them. To decolonize wealth, institutions must practice deep, generative listening and cede decision-making power to the communities they serve.

Authentic representation. True representation goes beyond token diversity; it requires that at least half of the people making funding decisions have lived experience with the issues at hand. This means shifting from expert-driven, top-down models to participatory grantmaking and budgeting.

• Participatory grantmaking allows peer groups to vote on and allocate resources themselves.
• Proximity to suffering enhances our capacity to design effective, long-term solutions.
• White saviors must step back and trust the leadership of those who have survived systemic oppression.

Listening in color. By actively listening to marginalized voices without predetermining the outcomes, we can unlock creative solutions that are invisible to the elite. Sharing power is not a loss; it is an expansion of our collective capacity to thrive.

9. Restoring balance requires 100% mission-aligned investing and systemic reparations to close the racial wealth gap.

What I’m talking about is more than recompense for past injustices—more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe.

Aligning the 95 percent. It is a profound hypocrisy for foundations to spend 5 percent of their assets on charitable grants while investing the remaining 95 percent in industries that cause systemic harm. Decolonizing wealth requires 100 percent mission-aligned investing, ensuring that all capital is used to do good.

The demand for reparations. True restoration requires systemic reparations to close the racial wealth gap created by centuries of unpaid labor and land theft. This involves a national reckoning, the return of land to Indigenous nations, and the unconditional transfer of wealth to exploited communities.

• Foundations must transition their entire endowments from "do no harm" to active mission alignment.
• Reparations require acknowledgement of harm, restitution through wealth transfer, and eventual closure.
• Implementing a financial transaction tax could generate hundreds of billions of dollars for public programs and reparations.

Closing the circle. By treating money as a tool of love and reciprocity rather than accumulation, we can close the loop of exploitation. Returning resources to those from whom they were stolen is the ultimate act of medicine, restoring balance to our communities and the earth.