The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex

by Incite! Women of Color Against Violence, INCITE!, Adenrele Ojo (Narrator)

A trillion-dollar industry, the US non-profit sector is one of the world's largest economies. From art museums and university hospitals to think tanks and church charities, over 1.5 million organizations of staggering diversity share the tax-exempt 501(c)(3) designation, if little else. Many social justice organizations have joined this world, often blunting political goals to satisfy government and foundation mandates. But even as funding shrinks, many activists often find it difficult to imagine movement-building outside the non-profit model. The Revolution Will Not Be Funded gathers essays by radical activists, educators, and non-profit staff from around the globe who critically rethink the long-term consequences of what they call the non-profit industrial complex. Drawing on their own experiences, the contributors track the history of non-profits and provide strategies to transform and work outside them. Urgent and visionary, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded presents a biting critique of the quietly devastating role the non-profit industrial complex plays in managing dissent.

Contributors Christine E. Ahn, Robert L. Allen, Alisa Bierria, Nicole Burrowes, Communities Against Rape and Abuse (CARA), William Cordery, Morgan Cousins, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Stephanie Guilloud, Adjoa Florência Jones de Almeida, Tiffany Lethabo King, Paul Kivel, Soniya Munshi, Ewuare Osayande, Amara H. Pérez, Project Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide, Dylan Rodríguez, Paula X. Rojas, Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo, Sisters in Action for Power, Andrea Smith, Eric Tang, Madonna Thunder Hawk, Ije Ude, Craig Willse

Are non-profit organizations sufficiently accountable and responsive to the larger aims of popular social movements, or is the 'non-profit industrial complex' thawing the potential for fundamental social change? The Revolution Will Not Be Funded provides a variety of critical perspectives that challenge the conventional foundation model and non-profit system approach to popular organizing in capitalist America. Sure to be a provocative book for activists working for social justice.—Daniel Faber, editor of Foundations for Social Change

This audiobook is skillfully read by Adenrele Ojo, and was produced and published by Echo Point Books & Media, an independent bookseller in Brattleboro, Vermont. Audio engineering by Allie McSwain.

PLEASE When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

Audible Audio

Published November 28, 2024

About the author

Mission Statement:
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.

Vision Statement:
INCITE! is a national, activist organization of radical feminists of color that is mobilizing to end all forms of violence against women of color and our communities. By supporting grassroots organizing, we intend to advance a national movement to nurture the health and well-being of communities of color. Through the efforts of Incite!, women of color and our communities will move closer towards global peace, justice and liberation.

Reviews

[Sunny Lu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite repetitive, and while I wholeheartedly agree with the critique of the non profit industrial complex, there were a lot of essays that I was just like… I don’t think so actually

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like the carceral system, nonprofits are also an “industrial complex”
- foundations are pressured to be less radical to get grant funding
- they benefit from systems/ such as the post office and tax benefits
- volunteers can make radical changes but they don’t get paid or have benefits from it
- 45% of the money foundations have would have gone to benefitting the public (would have been used under the government instead because limits of tax law)
- foundation trustees are mostly white and have high paying jobs, some are even paid for their foundation work
- Gates foundation funds vaccines while also investing money in the drug companies that stop sending low-cost AIDS vaccines to Africa
- CIA funded the ford foundation to quell radical protests
- ppl only start foundations to get tax breaks
- nonprofit workers undermine community experiences but still get funding