Decolonizing Wealth

This second edition expands Edgar Villanueva's provocative analysis of the dysfunctional colonial dynamics at play in philanthropy and finance into other sectors and offers practical advice on how anyone can be a decolonizer.

After over a decade in philanthropy, Edgar Villanueva has seen past the field's glamorous, altruistic façade and into its shadows: the old-boy networks, the savior complexes, and the internalized oppression among the "house slaves," those select few people of color who gain access. Villanueva broadens this analysis to address all the institutions along what he terms the "loans-to-gifts spectrum," which reflect and perpetuate the same underlying dynamics that divide Us from Them and the Haves from Have-Nots. The second edition includes a new foreword and three new chapters that address wealth decolonization in sectors outside of philanthropy and finance, such as libraries, museums, the entertainment industry, and more, and focus specifically on how readers can make an impact in their own spheres of influence.

Decolonizing funding processes, argues Villanueva, is key to healing. Because the Native way is to bring the oppressor into the circle of healing, the author diagnoses the fatal flaws in funders with great compassion while unflinchingly drilling down to the core of colonialism and white supremacy in his Seven Steps for Healing.