I finally got COVID for the first time (at my brother’s wedding) and then immediately got bronchitis, which I’m still coughing my way through. I’ll hopefully have an update to share about one of my comics projects in the next few weeks, and I started working on my voter guide for the 2024 primary election over the weekend. (Barbara Lee for US Senate, baby!) But today, I want to talk about the Nonprofit Industrial Complex.
For the rest of this week, all new donations to LA Street Care (the mutual aid group I organize with) will fund hardship grants -- tax-free money that goes directly to unhoused and housing-insecure people in crisis. These grants help cover emergency expenses, including food, rent, medical bills, and disaster relief.
What is the Nonprofit Industrial Complex?
On Giving Tuesday 2022, nonprofits raised a whopping $3.1 billion in the US alone. That’s a lot of money, and it’s just one day of giving, but pretty much everything seems to be worse than it was a year ago, right?
The Nonprofit Industrial Complex (NPIC) is the system in which the rich and powerful benefit from corporations and government agencies funding nonprofits. Through advantageous tax codes and public relations, the rich maintain control of their wealth, and corporations mask their exploitative practices with "philanthropic" work (e.g., Jeff Bezos generated positive headlines by donating $100 million to Feeding America after firing warehouse workers who demanded safe working conditions during the pandemic).
The NPIC encourages social justice initiatives to model themselves after the same capitalist structures that create and perpetuate poverty -- rather than challenge them. This undermines movements for radical change and upholds a system that progressively worsens conditions for the people it purports to help (e.g., LA's homelessness crisis grows each year despite the ever-increasing funding pumped into ineffective nonprofits, many of which are run by wealthy friends of politicians and CEOs, via grants and city contracts.) Not to mention the myriad of tactics and conflicts of interest used to milk nonprofits (e.g., exorbitant “consulting” fees, self-enriching contracts with for-profit entities, expensing fringe benefits).
Politicians rely on this artifice instead of taking meaningful action to address the root causes of poverty (e.g., creating social housing, proactively prosecuting wage theft, increasing budgets for services, capping rent increases, providing legal representation for anyone facing eviction, raising the minimum wage to be a liveable wage, indexing minimum wage to inflation). In case it's not obvious, elected officials allow this to continue because wielding their immense power to help workers, renters, and the poor would piss off the donor class. Instead, more money is pumped into the NPIC, benefiting the rich and appeasing just enough people to make it feel like we might be making a collective difference.
Why is donating to mutual aid a better option?
Every mutual aid group is different, but charities tend to only serve those they deem "the deserving poor" (e.g., only women, only children, only people who don't use drugs) while mutual aid believes anyone in need is deserving.
Nonprofits don't provide everything an unhoused person needs; most mutual aid groups ask folks what they need instead of assuming and deciding for them.
Mutual aid is about more than handing someone a meal or a tent. Its goal is to build new and lasting social relations. This builds power to fight back against unjust systems and enact transformative change. I also believe simply getting to know our neighbors can be a radical act in itself.
Giving to local mutual aid groups is a direct investment in your community and ensures donations reach people in need. I also encourage giving cash to the unhoused because it provides them with agency in meeting their needs.
Want to learn more about mutual aid and how it works? I love this explainer video by Dean Spade and Ciro Carillo.
The Hits:
Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt in one of his best performances, is an unsettling psychological portrait of abuse and its patterns. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this film, which is streaming on Criterion Channel through November 30.
I had the pleasure of meeting journalist, anarchist, and former Writers Guild of America, East Councilmember Kim Kelly during her book tour for Fight Like Hell, a thoughtful and inclusive history of labor in America. Kelly doesn’t shy away from the messy parts of the movement or the flaws and contradictions in its leaders, making this an accessible, fun, and thoroughly enraging read. It also serves as an important reminder of what happens when we don’t fight like hell.
Hosted by People’s City Council LA, People’s City Propaganda is one of my new favorite podcasts. Each episode features an interview with organizers from a different movement in Los Angeles, but I’d like to highlight the two-parter with Jacob Woocher about LA’s War on Public Housing.
The Claremont Run: Subverting Gender in the X-Men started as a Twitter account sharing daily micro analyses of Chris Claremont's 16-year run that made him the godfather of X-Men. Now in book form, it’s a must-read for anyone who loves X-Men for the many reasons that make it so special.
LA Public Press and Knock LA are the two best local news outlets in Los Angeles, and they depend on public funding, so please donate!