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Here we are on the precipice of another “giving season” the time when the collective of non-profits flood your inboxes, airwaves, and algorithms with incessant petitions to donate today, support us now, and help us do our work. Raising money and asking for donations has been and continues to be my least favorite aspect of being a nonprofit founder. Pouring your heart out to donors, shamelessly plugging the work that you are doing, and hoping that folks with any level of expendable income are a complex and exhausting mix of anxiety, frustration, and trepidation.
The constant soliciting reinforces for me the perpetual inequity that exists across all aspects of our society and highlights the fact that both for-profit businesses and philanthropy are two sides of the deleterious beast that is capitalism. Changing inequitable systems takes time and the change I wish to see may not happen in my lifetime. For now, the end-of-the-year charitable push has become the standard modus operanti in philanthropy whether I like it or not. According to Nonprofit Tech for Good; nearly one-third (31%) of annual giving occurs in December.
The long truth of the matter is that we wouldn’t need people to donate if everyone had their most basic needs met and we wouldn’t have inequity if resources weren’t stolen, pilfered, and exploited over hundreds of years. If everyone in our community had what they needed to thrive, nonprofits wouldn’t need to exist.
In 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted our systems and put a direct spotlight on the long-standing inequities, disparities, and oppression that we as a society and community continue to sweep under the rug. The pandemic highlighted that most of our major systems; healthcare, education, and higher education are woefully inadequate, inaccessible, and oppressive to Black people, brown people, disabled people, women and all people that exist at the interaction of historically oppressed communities. At 540 we saw an influx of capital and support of our antiracist mission. People and organizations posted banners and social media messages declaring a new way of being and a commitment to Black Lives Matter. Two years later and many well-meaning white people are burned out. There is an outright attack on facts, bans on books about slavery, #woke has been coopted and mocked and Critical Race Theory (CRT) has been politicized and decried as something it is not. Meanwhile, our team continues to curate and produce high-quality antiracist education despite the fact that individual donations have stagnated.
The work of antiracism is deeply personal and vulnerable in nature and when you exist at the intersection of multiple historically marginalized identities it sometimes feels impossible. The deleterious mental, emotional and physical effects are more harmful than we could ever articulate. The toll of white supremacy culture, structural racism, and patriarchy on those of us that have been historically oppressed and marginalized are overwhelming. It takes a large amount of financial physical and mental resources to do the work that we do. Still, we work tirelessly every day to envision a world free of structural racism and inequity and this is why we do the work that we do.
Since 2016, 540WMain has emerged as a leading provider of antiracism education for individuals, corporations, universities, and non-profits. We fulfill our mission and vision by aligning our practice around six core values:
However, the continued impact of COVID-19, inflation, and other systemic factors have reduced the total number of donations that we received as a non-profit.
mailing address P.O. BOX 10011, Rochester, NY 14610 • info540westmain@gmail.com