Donors of Color Network Inc

We – the Donors of Color Network – have the amazing opportunity to do things differently. We can build the party we want to be at!! We are building a network, in partnership with donors of color themselves, aligned around values that prioritize the concerns and leadership of communities of color. We are building a community that centers joy, love, being in values-aligned and authentic relationships, and power.

POWER

We talk a lot about POWER. As a group of people of color with access to resources, how can we be most powerful together to be most in service to our communities? What are the arenas in which we can be more powerful than the sum of our individual parts? How we do that is up to us. Exciting work exists in the cross-fertilization between many arenas – 501c3 (non-profit), 501c4 (advocacy), private sector, and culture. How can we coordinate, convene, and organize between all these arenas for the betterment of our communities for the long haul? For example, it would be unwise to confine ourselves to only a c3 arena because c3s are limited in their power to affect our political system. So, in our first year, we have formed a c4. We are actively exploring how we partner with the private sector and investing arenas from year one, as well. Because we know that culture moves faster than politics, we are also thinking about how we, as a POC community, can fund and influence culture workers and narrative creators, (shout out to Favianna Rodriguez, Center for Cultural Power).

THINKING ABOUT SYSTEMS

What are the systemic barriers that have kept our communities from building assets and wealth historically? What can we do now – together – to ensure that our communities have equal opportunity and access? We are a learning community that will explore these questions together in national and regional get togethers. We, as a staff, are committed to exploring these questions with each other and with our member community. We know that if we bring our donor members into intimate conversation with genius movement leaders, put them into community with other values-aligned donors who look like them, and surround them with smart staff, we will have a better chance of moving our folks faster along a systems-thinking and systems-changing path.

JOY | POWER | COMMUNITY

We are building a community that is changing the face of philanthropy. Our donor members will become donor organizers, moving their peers, friends, and networks to center the priorities of communities of color and to think with a systems frame. We will build upon the strong foundation of a values-aligned, humble, joyous, loving, and learning community, with the knowledge that we are more powerful together than each of us is as an individual. What are the movements we want to build and support? What is the change we want to see in the world and how do we, as a group of HNW donors of color, dream and co-create together to make that change?

We know that our community and the rich relationships