Borrow These Books and Get Ready for the 55th Annual Meeting!
Get ready for Philanthropy Southeast’s 55th Annual Meeting in Nashville this November with these titles by our keynote and plenary speakers, now available through our online Lending Library. Philanthropy Southeast members have exclusive access to our collection offering eBooks and audiobooks on best practices in philanthropy and nonprofit management, advancing equity, and trends in the social sector. Visit our website to learn more and get started today!
I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times by Mónica Guzmán
Chair's Book Club Selection
Journalist Mónica Guzmán is the loving liberal daughter of Mexican immigrants who voted – twice – for Donald Trump. When the country could no longer see straight across the political divide, Mónica set out to find what was blinding us, and discovered the most eye-opening tool we're not using: our own curiosity. In this timely, personal guide, Mónica, the chief storyteller for the national cross-partisan depolarization organization Braver Angels, takes you to the real front lines of a crisis that threatens to grind America to a halt – broken conversations among confounded people. She shows you how to overcome the fear and assumptions that surround us to finally do what only seems impossible: understand and even learn from people in your life whose whole worldview is not just different from yours, but opposed.
Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance by Edgar Villanueva
Villanueva offers a provocative analysis of the dysfunctional colonial dynamics at play in philanthropy and finance. Though it seems counterintuitive, the philanthropic industry has evolved to mirror colonial structures and reproduces hierarchy, ultimately doing more harm than good. After 14 years 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," and those select few people of color who gain access. All these funders reflect and perpetuate the same underlying dynamics that divide Us from Them and the haves from have-nots. In equal measure, he denounces the reproduction of systems of oppression while also advocating for an orientation towards justice to open the floodgates for a rising tide that lifts all boats. In the third and final section, Villanueva offers radical provocations to funders and outlines his Seven Steps for Healing.
My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music's Black Past, Present, and Future by Alice Randall
Country music had brought Alice Randall and her activist mother together and even gave Randall a singular distinction in American music history: she is the first Black woman to co-write a number one country hit, Trisha Yearwood's "XXX's and OOO's (An American Girl)". Randall found inspiration and comfort in the sounds and history of the first family of Black country music: DeFord Bailey, Lil Hardin, Ray Charles, Charley Pride, and Herb Jeffries who, together, made up a community of Black Americans rising through hard times to create simple beauty, true joy, and sometimes profound eccentricity. What emerges in My Black Country is "a delightful, inspirational story of persistence, resistance, and sheer love" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) of this most American of music genres and the radical joy in realizing the power of Black influence on American culture.
