Dear Friends,
Love is not soft. Love is not “being nice.”
Love is an action.
And none of this is new.
bell hooks taught us that love is something we do. Ella Baker’s organizing taught us to trust the leadership of people closest to the conditions that need to change. I grew up in Villa Victoria, a Boston neighborhood saved because Puerto Rican residents organized and refused to let their community disappear.
That is love in action.
Philanthropy is late to a practice communities have used for generations to care for one another, build power, and survive.
At Boston Women’s Fund (BWF), we began internally, rooting our culture in our values of love, belonging, and flow. Love led us to unlimited PTO, half-day Fridays, bringing our whole selves to work — even when that self is messy — and sometimes saying, “Put the work down. Take care of yourself.”
Then we asked: What would we do differently if love were part of our work’s infrastructure? Love looked like unrestricted five-year funding, conversations instead of RFPs, and Well-Being Grants.
With our grantee partners, sometimes love is a deep hug that says, “I know. You don’t have to explain it to me.” Sometimes it is the hard conversation, offered because we want to be closer on the other side of it.
Love can be designed, practiced, and tracked. And sometimes love is simply felt. We need both.
None of philanthropy’s systems just appeared. Somebody imagined the application, the budget cap, the rules about who is “ready” for funding.
Too much of philanthropy was designed to protect money from people.
We can design it differently.
Shiree Teng and Dr. Audrey Jordan ask what philanthropic practices could look like when built from love, and GEO’s Measuring Love work helps our field practice that question. I am grateful for their leadership as BWF continues to reimagine philanthropy.
Love is not the soft part of this work.
Love is the infrastructure.
With love,
Natanja Craig Oquendo
President & CEO
Boston Women’s Fund