Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex

The Revolution Will Not Be Funded a new book edited by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence

Follow the Money New Book Exposes Non-Profit Industrial Complex (NPIC) "Follow the money," so the saying goes, and inevitably it will lead you to those who pull the strings. Certainly this is a proven tactic for monitoring the uses and abuses of power by big business and government officials. But in the non-profit sector-despite a net worth surpassing many national GNPs-money flows in and out essentially unchecked. Questions of influence and benefit? Rarely asked. The reality, however, is that both right- and left-leaning foundations exert tremendous influence on policy, public discourse, and our larger political context. And their benefits are legion. Since the Gilded Age Since the Gilded Age, the foundation world has used this power both to protect their immediate financial interests and to shield them from public scrutiny, government regulation, and perhaps especially political opposition. With In These Times recently reporting that "foundation dollars provide 70 to 90 percent of funding support for most social movements," one might wonder how the agendas for these movements are being set. A major source of funding is from corporations, which benefit from the tax breaks and the good PR. They argue doing-good and turning a profit can go hand in hand. But as we see in The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, a larger question looms: What if turning a profit is possible only when the underlying causes of the social ills targeted by philanthropy remain intact? The Elephant in the Room While the large foundations are an obvious target of inquiry, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded does not stop there. Rather than focus on specific funders, this landmark collection offers a bird's eye view of the larger system as a whole. Over 25 activists and scholars identify the non-profit industrial complex (NPIC)-a system of relationships that deploy tools of state and owning-class control with surveillance, derailment, and everyday management of political movements. Having named what some might call "the elephant in the room," they go on to critically assess the NPIC's impact on the practice and imagination of the political left. Of central concern is the emerging dominance of the 501(c)(3) non-profit, a model which some argues threatens to permanently eclipse autonomous grassroots-movement building in the arena of social justice. Find out more... Table of Contents Introduction The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, by Andrea Smith Part One: The Rise of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex 1. The Political Logic of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, by Dylan Rodríguez 2. In the Shadow of the Shadow State, by Ruth Wilson Gilmore 3. From Black Awakening in Capitalist America, by Robert L. Allen 4. Democratizing American Philanthropy, by Christine E. Ahn Part Two: Non-Profits and Global Organizing 5. The Filth on Philanthropy: Progressive Philanthropy's Agenda to Misdirect Social Justice Movements and the Just Redistribution of Wealth and Power, by Tiffany Lethabo King and Ewuare Osayande 6. Between Radical Theory and Community Praxis: Reflections on Organizing and the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, by Amara H. Pérez, Sisters in Action for Power 7. Native Organizing Before the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, by Madonna Thunder Hawk 8. Fundraising Is Not a Dirty Word: Community-Based Economic Strategies for the Long Haul, by Stephanie Guilloud and William Cordery, Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide 9. "we were never meant to survive": Fighting Violence Against Women and the Fourth World War, by Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo 10. Social Service or Social Change?, by Paul Kivel 11. Pursuing a Radical Anti-Violence Agenda Inside/Outside a Non-Profit Structure, by Alisa Bierria, Communities Against Rape and Abuse (CARA) 12. The NGOization of the Palestine Liberation Movement: Interviews with Hatem Bazian, Noura Erekat, Atef Said, and Zeina Zaatari, by Andrea Smith Part Three: Reformulating the Role of Non-Profits 13. Radical Social Change: Searching for a New Foundation, by Adjoa Florência Jones de Almeida 14. Are the Cops in Our Heads and Hearts?, by Paula X. Rojas 15. Non-Profits and the Autonomous Grassroots, by Eric Tang 16. On Our Own Terms: Ten Years of Radical Community Building with Sista II Sista, by Nicole Burrowes, Morgan Cousins, Paula X. Rojas, and Ije Ude About INCITE! Among the largest feminist organizations in the world, INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence is a national activist organization of radical feminists of color advancing a movement to end violence against women of color and their communities through direct action, critical dialogue, and grassroots organizing. To learn more, please visit www.incite-national.org. About South End Press South End Press is an independent, nonprofit, collectively run book publisher with more than 250 titles in print. Since our founding in 1977, we have tried to meet the needs of readers who are exploring, or are already committed to, the politics of radical social change. Our goal is to publish books that encourage critical thinking and constructive action on the key political, cultural, social, economic, and ecological issues shaping life in the United States and in the world. We hope to provide a forum for a wide variety of democratic social movements, and provide an alternative to the products of corporate publishing. read. write. revolt. support south end press