Diversify your portfolio. The idea is simple: if you put all your money in one type of investment, that investment could fail and you could lose all your money.

This idea is so fundamental to investing that it's not even considered a "tip" or "advice." It's just truth. 

Well, money is only one type of wealth. So why is the idea of diversifying financial wealth so universal while the idea of diversifying social wealth is treated as a gentle, noble, and totally optional idea? 

Is having a diverse social portfolio just as crucial a foundation for security as having a diverse financial portfolio? I'll explore that idea using myself as a test subject.   

I was brought up by two loving, supportive, highly-educated professionals who have dedicated their careers to development of the mind. My parents' minds have a command of facts, historical events, poetry, 5th grade class rosters (really), books of the Bible, and ancient Greek, among other astounding things. This is power I'll call cerebral power. 

My parents applied their cerebral power to teaching me some amazing skills, like task management, personal organization, reading/writing proficiency, metalingual awareness, how to argue effectively, and a thousand other skills that are valued in the professional world. For that, I am supremely grateful. I LOVE YOU, MOM AND DAD!!!

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I have realized that the world is full of situations where cerebral-dominance (and the money that tends to follow it) not only falls short, but can actually do harm. Here's a nerdy graphic that illustrates which components of life might come easily and which might be challenging for a person like me who has been raised to be cerebral-dominant.

Many of us cerebral-types understand that approaching life exclusively with the thinking brain doesn't work. Yet it takes immense effort to reprogram ourselves to be able to "let go" of that cerebral dominance. I mean, nobody who claims that they "can't dance" is proud of that.  

To complicate things, our society tends to put cerebral-dominant people on a pedestal--we see them as people who can "make the hard decisions" and "get things done." But we don't see the social poverty that comes with such a narrow approach to life. We tend to spend our time around other people who are like us, and so we cerebral types go further down into our logic-holes, until we believe the lie that we were never even able to dance, or sing, or howl at the moon in the first place.  

But the world never fails to present us with moon-howling moments...and if we don't learn to seize them, then those moments pass us by. We feel it when we've missed an opportunity to break out of our cocoons and transform ourselves, even if we can't put our finger on what we missed or why we missed it. I call that poverty. 

Meanwhile, people who weren't raised to be cerebral-dominant often struggle with the demands that institutions and bureaucracy place on them, especially if they weren't lucky enough to be born into a stable financial situation. A mortgage-lender wants people to make payments on time, every time. For people without money who struggle with organization and bookkeeping, this situation can be catastrophic, as a bank has the power to tear apart their lives. I call that poverty, too. 

So what?

Each of us (cerebral-dominant and other-dominant) has wealths to share with the other. Each of us is suffering from different poverties, and we could each become more resilient and adaptable if we could just find ways to connect with people who come from a wide variety of backgrounds. But our distinct ways of presenting ourselves (behavior, dress, speech, etc.) make it REALLY HARD to achieve connection across dividing lines. So most often, we stay down in our own poverty-holes, some of us painfully aware of what we lack, some of us fooled into believing we have no poverty just because we can't see it with our eyes. 

In April, I was inspired by an example of work that bends the boundaries of our society towards justice. Ariel Pliskin is my close friend and the founder of Stone Soup, a pay-what-you-can cafe in Greenfield, Massachusetts. Stone Soup offers "a new model of hunger relief in which people of all socio-economic backgrounds are treated  as valuable members of a diverse and inclusive community." In other words, it's a restaurant where EVERYONE is welcome, no matter what money they do or don't have. Watch this 5-minute video to get a sense of the magic happening at Stone Soup. 

On my first visit to Stone Soup, I was intrigued to see 118 diverse people gathered to eat together at a place where the lines that normally divide us were just a bit blurrier than they were in the outside world. 

But what really stuck with me was the stories of healing. Before the meal began, I spoke separately to three men (names changed) who volunteer their time at the Stone Soup Cafe. 

I met Sean, a middle-aged, working class, brown-skinned man who told me that Saturdays at Stone Soup offers him peace and community among his life of chaos (his word). 

I met Jason, a young, working class, white-skinned man who told me of his struggles with bullying, lack of family support, addiction, and rehab. Jason said that Stone Soup was an opportunity to be a part of a community where people wanted to do good. In that respect, it was more therapeutic than any rehab program he had been a part of.   

Then I met Harold, a middle-class, white-skinned man who had been a chef in a high-volume restaurant kitchen for 10 years before burning out and leaving the industry that he had originally entered because of his love of cooking. Harold told me that here, at Stone Soup, he had been able to once again enter the kitchen he had avoided for so long after burning out. 

Three men, three stories of healing particular to that man's experience and scars. All found in the same place, a place of love, community, acceptance, and delicious food. 

Could a cafe like Stone Soup be a quiet, slow, and unstoppably powerful forging of a new American community for the 21st century? 

This poster (from the Haley House Cafe bathroom)
got me thinking...could there a place for something like the Stone Soup Cafe in Cambridge? 

I'm listening...

In an earlier post, I proposed a radical shift in philanthropy in which a class-privileged person like me enters new interactions with the belief that someone with scant financial resources has just as much power to help me as I have power to help them. 

On May 8-11, 2014, I participated in my first street retreat in NYC. We spent three days living, sleeping, and eating on the street. I was able to try out this new way of interacting with people across the class divide. 

There are a thousand stories worth telling about the retreat, but I'll focus on one. 

Jamila

The first night, during services at the Bowery Mission, a brown-skinned woman wearing a hijab ran up to our retreat leader and screamed with joy, hugging him tightly. This was my introduction to Jamila (name changed). Jamila is 42 years old, and spent 20 years living on the street. She spent some time addicted to crack, which has permanently affected the way she looks. Today, Jamila is sober and lives in a shelter. She has converted to Islam and credits her religion as one of the reasons she is living a more stable and happy life today. She had interacted with people during the previous year's street retreat and this year decided to join us, staying for all three days. 

Time for me to confess. Before this retreat, I would have avoided contact with someone like Jamila because she has an unpredictable and powerfully energetic vibe about her. I would be afraid that eye contact might start some sort of screaming session or worse. But here she was, with that same energy, hugging us, loving us, and loudly declaring how glad she was to be with us in the streets. 

A Dollar For Your Humanity

On Friday afternoon, in Tompkins Square Park, I wanted to call my family, Erika and Estella. However, as per the rules of the street retreat, I didn't have my phone. As our group stood there in the May sunlight, I asked if anyone knew where the nearest pay phone was. Jamila sprang up and ordered me to follow her. 

As we walked, I realized that I had no money (another item we weren't allowed to bring with us). Without hesitation, Jamila reached into her pocket and handed me four quarters, which would get me six minutes of talking time. I thanked her and we arrived at the pay phone. She sat nearby as I called and talked to my family. 

Only later did I realize what had happened. Me, a person with class privilege and a materially-comfortable life, had been offered money from a single woman who is living in a shelter, has no reliable source of income, and is an ex-crack addict. 

And I had accepted the dollar with real gratitude and no hesitation. 

In the past, I would have thought (and maybe even said), "Jamila, I can't accept this. You struggle just to stay above water while I live an easy life. I can't accept this dollar...you need it way more than I do!"

But I had spent time with Jamila, and I had seen the look of pride on her face as she led us through the streets, shouting out to her friends that we passed along the way, finding scaffolding to sleep under, teaching me how to use bubble wrap as padding for my "bed," and doing a hundred other things to help ease our rough (if temporary) transition to the streets. 

I was experiencing a re-learning of a timeless lesson: people just want to do something good. By offering me a dollar to call my family, Jamila was helping me to do something important. I really needed that dollar in that moment! 

If I were to refuse an offer of help from Jamila, I would be doing it with the intention of not taking resources from someone who doesn't have much money in the first place. But what I would really be doing is denying Jamila's humanity--her desire to do something good for me. I would be grabbing for all of the helping power in our friendship, and I'd be refusing to recognize Jamila's inherent value as a representative of humanity.

Jamila's humanity is worth more than the dollar she gave me...no matter what money situation she's in. And I know that no matter what material wealth I might attain, I will always need help from people around me. It's up to me to practice radical philanthropy: risking allowing others to help me, regardless of our life situations. 

As I presented in my last post, one way, as people of privilege, that we can risk something is by simply being more honest with others about our privilege and how it affects our world views. 

Here's another way of risking something: opening ourselves up to alternate ways of using financial privilege that work towards social justice AND begin to heal our own social wounds.

One dominant model of philanthropy is what I call "help at a distance." It's people with financial privilege giving money to organizations that do the legwork to help people or causes that don't have financial resources. I've been a part of this type of philanthropy so I'm speaking from personal experience. Let me preface my comments by affirming that yes, these types of philanthropies can DEFINITELY help make the world better. 

But I have two concerns about how this philanthropy works:

1. The funding strategy may or may not include dialogue with the people who stand to benefit from the funding. And I don't just mean feel-good dialogue, I mean dialogue with teeth, in which the people who stand to benefit financially have just as much deciding power as the people who are running the funding structure.
2. The person donating the money is usually disconnected and distanced from interpersonal relationships with the people who are being supported financially. 

This second concern is my focus here. It turns out that people like me, people with privilege, need connection--just like all other humans. The problem is that American society works hard to convince people like me that once we've got material comfort, then we're set. BULLSHIT. Go watch "Born Rich." Come back and keep reading.

The traditional model of philanthropy does nothing to challenge status quo of people with financial resources being personally disconnected from people without financial resources. I think that until people from different classes are in meaningful dialogue with each other, there won't be any major shifts toward equity in America--no matter how much money wealthy people donate to charity. In traditional philanthropy, the giver usually remains disconnected and the fundamental expectations of society remain unchanged: don't connect with people who are different from you. 

We see the results of this expectation today, where most politically-mainstream American people with financial privilege don't connect face-to-face with people without finances for anything beyond superficial, passing conversation. We've been expecting rich people to just magically increase their empathy for poor people without speaking with them, hoping that they will then give more out of a sense of moral obligation. While I agree with the moral-obligation argument, there's a huge swath of wealthy Americans who don't buy it. Do we give up on these people being part of a social justice movement, or is there another way to inspire them to risk more?

This is where I see possibility for revolution--connecting people across the financial spectrum for nonjudgmental, honest dialogue. In my personal experience, such dialogue can lead to an expansion of the terms "wealth" and "poverty" to encompass things other than just money. 

That would be a radical societal shift. 

Based on our actions (as individuals and as groups), here are mainstream America's definitions of the terms "wealth" and "poverty":
Wealth = having money which means not having problems (despite Biggie's best efforts) 
Poverty = not having money, which means having only problems

If this is the accepted dynamic, with money being the only value that makes up "wealth," how can we expect mainstream (liberal, centrist, or conservative) financially wealthy people to view financially poor people as having value? If financially poor people are seen as having no value to society, that's where the paternalistic philanthropic view comes from: "I have money, so I am more important than you because you don't have money. You are to be the recipient of my generosity, so be thankful." 

What if instead, people with wealth approached philanthropy with a commitment to being open to internal change at the same depth as the change they wish to make in the outside world? In that situation, everyone involved stands to benefit, and everyone stands to give.

Now, everyone involved is speaking as humans with their own wounds and assets. Now everybody is ready to give of their gifts, and everybody is ready to receive for their needs. Now philanthropy is a two-way conduit. 

And that leads to life-affirming connection with people who are different from me. Now we don't see each other as class caricatures. Now I'm risking connection by acknowledging my own poverty and committing to finding the wealth of the person looking in my eyes.

If I am aware of the injustices that are built into American society, and if I am conscious of all the privileges that society has given me as a straight, white-skinned male from an upper-class background, then it's kind of hard to be public with that privilege, admit it, and talk about it. We're talking deeply-rooted shame: "I don't deserve this...I didn't earn it...people around me are struggling every day...what can I possibly do that can make me deserving of the comforts I enjoy?"

So people like me, sometimes we go into hiding. We work to convince the world around us, "Hey, I'm just like you! I'm not special. I don't think I deserve anything more than anyone else. Solidarity, right?" 

And in trying to hide our privilege, something goes horribly wrong: we end up reinforcing the American myth of a "classless society." Our refusal to embrace and admit our class privilege makes it seem like we're all in this together. We may be all in this together, but we ain't starting from the same place. IRONY: in solidarity with classes of people who struggle financially, we conscious upper-class people sometimes present ourselves as less-privileged than we are, which maintains the system of financial inequity by preserving the "we are all born with equal opportunity" myth.  

If I have privilege and want to be a part of change, then I can start by talking about my own privilege and how it affects my world. That's risking something  (like judgment, anger, confusion, isolation, and rejection). In my next post, I'll talk about other ways I can risk something in order to disrupt the status quo.

I've presented two ways of risking something--being honest about privilege and practicing connected philanthropy. 

What are other ways that people with privilege can risk something? The following is a thoroughly incomplete list and I hope readers will comment with other ideas.




RISK BEING FINANCIALLY IMPRUDENT: I should be open to opportunities for my financial privilege to be used in donation-worthy situations that I am directly involved in (as opposed to only using it in situations I'm personally disconnected from). For example, what if your financially-struggling friend is starting up an amazing non-profit and is looking for help? Many people would say don't touch it...I'm suggesting not only jump in, but be transparent about it with your friend. This goes against a lot of "common sense" wealth advice, which advises people never to mix their personal lives and their philanthropy, and DEFINITELY not to reveal one's willingness to contribute resources.
RISKS: I could be judged. Someone could take advantage of me for financial gain. My relationship with my friend could become complicated. BENEFITS: I actually see my privilege doing good for people who are personally important to me. I feel free because I'm no longer hiding this integral part of my identity anymore out of guilt or fear. My friendship has the potential to grow stronger through entering unexplored parts of our friendship together. QUESTIONS I WOULD ASK MYSELF: What would someone taking advantage of someone financially in this situation look like? Am I a good judge of character and intentions? If financial catastrophe were to occur, who would have my back? KARMA: if I give of myself and my resources, does it make it more likely that I won't be left alone to fall if something terrible were to happen to me?