Funding the Anti-Capitalist Movement: Challenges and Strategies

This is a free preview of the episode "Will the Revolution Be Funded? w/ Nairuti Shastry and Zac Chapman." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast

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How do we resource the necessary work to dismantle capitalism and transition to a more democratic, just and regenerative economy—especially when capital will fight and/or co-opt any attempt to disrupt the status quo that they benefit from and when capital owns and controls most foundations and granting institutions? 

This is the important and highly relevant question we will tackle today with our two guests Nairuti Shastry and Zac Chapman. Nairuti is a racial and economic justice researcher-practitioner and the Founder and Principal of Nuance, a social impact consulting firm, as well as a senior researcher at Beloved Economies.  Zac is the Resource Mobilization Director at the New Economy Coalition, a steering committee member of Massachusetts Solidarity Economy Network, and board member of LittleSis. Together they recently wrote an article titled, “Will the Revolution be Funded?” published by The Forge. 

In this conversation we explain why it is so hard to find funding to do anti-capitalist movement work and how we can find aligned funding both within and outside of mainstream philanthropy. We learn about ways that activists and organizations are working to fight against and transform the nonprofit industrial complex and the existing philanthropic culture and institutions. And finally, we ask what it truly means to resource the revolution and support ourselves beyond financial capital. 

Further resources:

• Will the Revolution be Funded?
• Will the Revolution be Funded? Youtube event recording
• New Economy Coaltion Funding Library
• Post Capitalist Philanthropy
• New Report: Gilded Giving 2022, Institute for Policy Studies
• Funding Freedom: Philanthropy and the Palestinian Freedom Movement, Solidaire
• Sylvia Rivera Law Project
• Poder Emma
• Drivers Cooperative
• A Strategic Framework for a Just Transition, Movement Generation
• How we Contest for Power, Mijente
• Resource Generation
• What Organizers Need From Lawyers, Part 2: Help Build Deep Democracy, Convergence Mag
• The Political Logic of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex
• The Financial Activist Playbook, by Jasmine Rashid
•  Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World By Anand Giridharadas
• Related organizations: Sustainable Economies Law Center, Invest for Better, Slow Money Institute, NC3, Excessive Wealth Disorder Institute, Transform Finance, The Next Egg
• Values aligned Wealth advisors and managers: Mission Driven Finance, FSL Public Finance, Chordata Capital, Mission Driven Finance, Adasina Social Capital  

Related episodes:

• Post Capitalism w/ Alnoor Ladha
• A World Without Profit with Jennifer Hinton

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