Giving Compass' Take:

• Joanna Levitt Cea, the director of the Buen Vivir Fund at Thousand Currents, discusses ways to focus on well-being in your philanthropy, rather than approach investment from a place of fear.

• Is fear holding you back? How can you shift your philanthropy to focus ono well-being? 

• Get your giving right: Philanthropy and charity are not the same.


Money. It’s great when you have it, hell when you don’t  —  even more so when you borrow.

When, why, and how did you learn that money must equal anxiety? Does it have to be this way?

“How do we escape the trap that comes with money?” Don Jorge Santiago, former staff and current adviser to long-term Thousand Currents partner, Desarrollo Económico Social de los Mexicanos Indígenas (Social Economic Development of Indigenous Mexicans, DESMI), says often. “And that [trap] is: control, power.”

A powerful area of learning has been in how to reimagine wealth and to put well-being at the center in your investment and philanthropic practice, rather than fear. Here are three ways to start:

  1. Imbue your values in every step of the process … no, every step.
  2. Learn from the “joyous” examples in the Global South.
  3. Pay close and careful attention to breaking down barriers.

This is how Thousand Currents is liberating philanthropy. Instead of approaching the work with fear and grasping for control, what emerges is the opposite of fear  —  gratitude for, and faith in, what is possible when we all care for one another’s buen vivir.

Read the full article about how to dismantle the fear-based economy by Joanna Levitt Cea from Thousand Currents, via Medium.