Episode 1: Radical Redistribution
In 2018, Americans gave away $428 billion dollars, with 30% of it coming from the top half of the 1% of earners. More than $142 billion went to causes dictated by only a small number of Americans–a power that some consider undemocratic in a democracy. Now, envision a world with philanthropy that is structured radically differently – or perhaps doesn’t exist at all. The question stands: how can we disrupt hierarchies that currently exist and who is already doing so? What successful practices can we lift up? Where should the field of philanthropy go from here?
In this podcast, we explore these questions with Gara LaMarche, President of the Democracy Alliance and long-time advisor to and critic of traditional philanthropy, and Holly Fetter, a member of Resource Generation, an organization of young people with access to wealth who are pushing for those with wealth and class privilege to be more accountable to communities experiencing oppression and inequality.
This podcast was brought to you by Liz Weingartner, Karl Kumodzi, Sophie Dover, and Barbara Bush.
The music was created by Charles Copley.
An enormous thank you to Gara LaMarche and Holly Fetter for their participation and to Professor Megan Ming Francis for her thought-provoking scholarship and class.