It’s been a tough few weeks for our community. Our freedoms are at stake, and joy is the cost. We look forward to Pride, but stand in the reality that times like these make us question our solidarities and fear what seems inevitable.
To ground ourselves, we celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Asian-American and Pacific Islander members of our community have been instructive in skillful, intergenerational care. Organizations like Trikone and APIQWTC have built deep networks of trust for times like these, evidenced by the fact that they are both 100% volunteer run.
Community comes together to support community, and I look to intersectional leaders to guide us. Leaders like Kim Coco Iwamoto, who tells us:
“Really, in the face of adversity, you have to tap into that place where you feel valued – as a member of a family and a larger community.”
Closer to home, we look to Advisory Council member A. Sparks for a dreamscape of what community-minded philanthropy can look like. Through her recollection of the work of her grandfather, and her leadership of Japanese American family foundation the Masto Foundation, we are offered a vision of philanthropic giving to build community.
| Sparks: | I came to philanthropy through social work, specifically working with foster youth. I came to California initially to continue my social work degree – I imagined I would do work with individual LGBTQ youth.
That’s when I really started to learn more about philanthropy and – more broadly – philanthropy’s ability to support systems change. I started learning more about my own family’s philanthropic history – traveling to the town where my grandfather had his companies and learning his story. What inspired me was everything that came from those conversations. I learned that my grandfather, in the 50’s and 60’s, was using philanthropy; or, more accurately, allowing members of the community to invest in each other. He always sort of led by example, that was his philosophy. And so, even though he was a farmer (he would’ve identified as a farmer), he definitely was doing philanthropy in these really creative and incredible ways. The ways that he gave were informed by a very different cultural set of values, focused on relationships, community, and our collective responsibility to work together to strengthen the community. He had interests and priorities like education, even though he hadn’t gone to high school. I learned that if any of his workers wanted to send their kids to college, he paid for it. |
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| Interviewer: | I mean, talk about mutual aid, that is a whole different story… Wow. | |
| Sparks: | Another thing that was significant for me was that I had to learn this all through storytelling. Very shortly after my grandfather set up the foundation, when I was still a child, he had a stroke and lost his ability to speak.
Storytelling was a way to better understand what his values were, what motivated him, and then how we could interpret what his values were and what his goals were in how we give as a family now. |
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| Interviewer: | And some would say that’s a more honest recollection of his legacy, which is the power of storytelling.
I would love to hear about the tradition of gifting that you have. You mentioned a little bit before, but can you share with us the specific giving tradition that you embody, and how it sets the tone for your philanthropy? |
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| Sparks: | Initially, it came from trying to find community. I was having challenges with finding other nextgen folks from communities of color, involved in family philanthropy, which then led to sort of a critical evaluation: what is it about family philanthropy that has denied access? How does this lead to funding disparities?
What we found is inequitable wealth accumulation in America, and that because we don’t have a diversity of mindsets, backgrounds, cultures, and life experiences, there’s one cultural way of grantmaking in the United States. So we talked about it, as a family: different cultures of giving, different Japanese American traditions of giving. Everything from the day-to-day of showing up to someone’s house with a gift, to the gift given when somebody passes away in Japanese American traditions, called Okoden. I also travelled in Japan and saw different traditions of giving, exploring those and our own family’s giving culture. From that, we developed a set of six principles, which we wanted to guide our grantmaking. These are very separate from our organizational values. Our guiding principles include gratitude, hospitality, respect, appreciation, mindfulness, and humility. Generally, the fundamental difference is that our giving is relational, it’s not transactional, and that at its core is the Japanese American spirit of giving: Giving is meant to strengthen relationships and strengthen bonds – between individuals, between an individual and the community – and it’s reciprocal. In my act of giving, it’s not me giving up something. It’s me contributing to something. And contributing to that draws my relationship closer to the community, and the issues that I am trying to solve. |
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| Interviewer: | Thank you for explaining that. I feel like it is, from what I see in philanthropy, truly a revelation. I’m very excited that you are able to embody that in our sector.
My last question for you, Sparks, is why the Curve Foundation? Why did you decide to take on this as an additional mission? |
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| Sparks: | Many reasons, including “When Kate Kendall calls …” | |
| Interviewer: | “… You answer!” | |
| Sparks: | I literally will answer when Kate calls. On a very tangible level, there’s that.
But also, I’m in many philanthropic spaces where I am the only one. In these spaces, they’re so dominantly white (and in LGBTQ philanthropy, it’s so dominantly gay white male) that there’s not even a critical mass of folks for us to rock the boat. Curve needs to be in these spaces. Access – that’s the beginning of us building power. And not just showing up as guests, or panelists, but as individuals who can offer special insights into conversations, issues, and organizations that these spaces have not had access to. The baseline is to go beyond tokenization. We need to show up, open doors for other people, bring others in; then, these issues actually and authentically are addressed. Even better than that, let’s create spaces where our needs and issues are celebrated, and we can be celebrated for who we actually are. |
