Contemplate Evil

This past weekend, editor friends of mine reviewed a long, ranty thought piece I had written about land trusts in Massachusetts. Together, over homegrown carrots and strong coffee, we focused in, over and over, on the absurdity of philanthropy.

Trust us. We’re a non-profit. Give us your money now. Give us a bigger gift over the next couple of years. Give us your home when you die. By giving us these material assets – which we pretty much always immediately liquidate and invest in the stock market – you become us. A trustworthy part of a machine that is making the world a better place. You, through your generosity, help us help people like you watch birds forever. It doesn’t matter what’s happening right now. In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to the thousands of working class people being human trafficked by our corporate-captured government. It doesn’t matter what is happening in Florida and Texas and Louisiana, with the rapid deployment of our federal taxpayer dollars to stand up concentration camps for “illegals” who have done nothing other than grow our food and process our waste. It certainly doesn’t matter what’s happening in Yemen. Or Sudan. Or Burundi. Don’t even think about saying Palestine. You did, didn’t you? You thought about it. Well, we’ll get back to that. But for now, what is important is the 67,000 acres of land that we oversee, and by oversee, I mean, own. These trails. These mansions. These “special places.” “For everyone. Forever.”

Your legacy?

As we sat and talked, someone described the phenomenon of philanthropy as “Bambification.” The fantasy of alleviating suffering at scale with even the tiniest amount of charity. The juvenility of believing that an organization must serve as an intermediary of how one shares one’s wealth. The lunacy of wanting to control anything after you’ve died.

It is perfectly legal and appropriate to give money to other people. Cash. A check. Wire transfers. You can give money to people you know. And you can give money to people you don’t know. In fact, you can give anyone up to $18,999 without having to file any paperwork with the IRS. Nothing. Literally nothing happens to you, except that you’ve immediately, directly helped someone else.

But why would you do this? Give the gift of money directly to someone else? Because they need it, and you don’t. It isn’t any more complicated than that. I’m encouraging everyone I meet to stop “investing” in large, bloated non-profits and instead give money directly to people in their communities who need it most. The most vulnerable people. The families of workers who are about to go on strike. The people who are trying to get their loved ones out of ICE prisons.

You can do this. Give money to people, without strings attached, without expectations. And from there, it’s like a snowball. You can tell people about it.

I did this. This way. Because it literally doesn’t matter who they are or what happens to the money after the transaction is complete. I don’t need to have control of it. I don’t need to “entrust” it to a non-profit organization to legitimize it. I don’t need to make sure someone is doing the “right” thing with money they clearly need. I’m not into overseeing. That’s what slave owners did. That’s so Florida, right now.

The more I talk about philanthropy and wealth hoarding, out loud to anyone with critical thinking skills, the more embarrassed I am. For us, as a society. That we cannot see this massive sleight of hand. I’m also deeply ashamed that I didn’t put all of this together sooner. That it took twenty years, working inside of some of the largest, most bloated pretend non-profits, to realize these corporations (that’s what they are) are making things worse.

Time is of the essence. Contemplate evil, quickly. The people who grow our food and process our waste are being kidnapped by bounty hunters and sent to for-profit prisons where they will continue to grow our food and process our waste as slaves. Meanwhile, we are inspired by the idea that the Democratic party is reformable and the GOP will go away if we just keep standing out?

Y’all, we need to infuse the most vulnerable people in our communities with capital. Cash. From your retirement fund to their grocery cart. Why? Because it is the right thing to do. And we all need to be doing the right thing right now to upend the system. To build different, better, non-exploitative, non-destructive, non-violent systems.

We do not have luxury to argue about the best approach to build bases of power to flip the House in 2026.* You know who the most vulnerable people are in your communities. You do. You just don’t want to interact with them. You don’t want to see yourself in them. But you must find them. You must interact with them. You must see yourself in them. And then you must give them as much money as you can afford to give them.

Non-profits are designed to exist, hat in hand, forever. Just like our corporate-captured two-party electoral system is designed to keep us fighting, amongst ourselves, forever. Corporations, especially the ones charading around as non-profits, are criminal. You should not trust them or what they say they are going to do with the money you give them.

Instead, gather your friends around a table and figure out how you’ll give away your money to the people in your community who need it most. Direct support to the most vulnerable people in your community. Again, you are not overseers of vulnerable people. You have enough. It is high time to share.

It’s late in the game, but it’s not over yet.