Fundraising while minoritized often feels like translating your own soul—switching tongues, choosing which parts of yourself the world can see. Here’s a reflective journey through that “battle of identities,” and six lessons that show why our layered backgrounds are not barriers but super-powers.
About me
Have you ever had to fight against your identity or put it on display? Tone it down a bit or increase the volume?
Have you ever had to choose which side of you shows up today and which side to tame?
Have you ever felt you have several identities and yet you can’t choose between any of them?
Being from an Arab descent, working in the non-profit sector and writing proposals in English, I never paused to imagine what it would be like to write in my own language, Arabic.
All of my proposals have been written in English.
Even if I tried to write in Arabic, I wouldn’t know how to – huge props to those who can. But you see, I had to learn multiple languages to exist, so Arabic was put on the shelf for a while.
In fact, Arabic was pushed so far away, it felt as if it was my third language.
In the fundraising world, you’re taught to make every project your passion, you advocate for it, you believe in it and you “sell” it. But what does it mean to be a minority within a minority, fundraising for yet another minority? How passionate can you feel? Which part of your identity are you calling on stage now?
It’s strange that these thoughts are just now crossing my mind; one thought kept looping—how strange it is for us to advocate in a second or third language for causes born of the very systems that failed us, while others calmly write in the language they think and dream in.
How oppressed are we?
Finding (and Hiding) My Voice
But let’s get back to the story, and here is a little bit of background.
During my work, I advocated for disadvantaged groups. Groups that had no say in their life or in their future, being constantly handled by someone else, no voice of their own. At 27, still hunting for my own voice, it was both “easy” and “hard” to identify with them. I understood the struggle, but I couldn’t feel it fully. It made sense to me why things were the way they were and why we are doing what we are doing. I was oppressed by the same system (differently, “gentler” oppression, but the same), but I couldn’t bring myself to fully immerse myself in our projects.
Were our projects successful? Yes. Could I have done a better job? I believe I did my best. Was I able – at that time – to comprehend and fully feel what the community we were advocating for, was going through? I can’t be 100% affirmative
I knew the logistics, I knew the facts, but I couldn’t let my guard down. However immense or trivial my problems seemed beside my community’s hardships, the pain was still mine—and I couldn’t simply set it down.
My 27 years old heart and mind were a witness to the horrors of our failed humanity, but resisted registering them. I decided they won’t become a part of me.
While digging into my previous experiences, I felt a sense of defeat. I knew not many would relate and when I decided to attempt to write about work, I looked for familiar voices, I looked for my community.
I believe we find strength in community—ours and others. They show us the way to compassion and power. And I needed to feel empowered.
Listening to Familiar Voices
After six years in Canada, I was ready. I spoke with fellow fundraisers from backgrounds like mine. These are the things I learnt from my conversations with my colleagues:
Six Things We Learned
- We had to become resourceful:
We had to be creative despite limitations, whether they are financial or social restrictions.
We learnt how to engage within and with the system, a system that was built to mostly oppress us, or create obstacles in our path. We became savvy in our approach to fundraising and engaging our donors and community, we became excellent problem tacklers.
2. We became educators:
We had to find ways to gently but firmly explain to donors the problems our community faces and educate them through framing these issues in a social and political context. These were foreign donors, they had little knowledge of what we face as a community, but they wanted to help. So we explained and advocated creatively, we gathered data and elaborated about how one problem can be caused by several factors, we taught them our needs and they awarded us with generosity and understanding.
- Our needs and issues are political:
A lot of the issues we faced were from a very intersectional point of view. We didn’t have one issue to resolve, we had many, and they were all related. All of these complex layers had to be explained to donors, and more importantly, our needs were political.
Our situation was political, and people aren’t comfortable talking about politics, but we can’t ignore these factors while fundraising.
- Being local mattered:
While I was drowning in my thoughts convincing myself I had no agency, a fellow fundraiser reminded me how valuable we are as local fundraisers. Compared to someone who wasn’t local, there was no need for the program team to explain to us social, political and cultural context, we lived it, we were it. We were able to start writing a proposal immediately after learning about any project, we didn’t have to be educated about the program’s background, it was all around us.
These programs – thought many of them didn’t affect us directly – were part of our community. We knew the community who needed it, we lived with them, we talked to them, they were a part of us.
- Power of empathy and curiosity:
My colleague also reminded me how powerful the power of empathy is.
Because we were a minority and faced so many challenges, we were able to relate to other communities. Even if we didn’t live their lives, it felt as if we knew them, and that made our proposals and fundraising efforts so much more powerful.
We are also very curious and eager to learn about other communities, we ask questions and interact and treat people the same way we would like to be treated. I believe this helps create stronger bonds between communities and lay out a basis of mutual understanding and respect.
6. We are community builders and leaders:
Our sense of community and the ability to gather, build and help each other is unbeatable. Being a minority was and will never be a weakness or a barrier. It teaches us tools to communicate and connect with other people and communities and it bridges the gap between us and the rest of the world, and usually, we are the ones taking the first step in connecting.
We lead, and we shouldn’t shy away from that role, it becomes second nature to us. We lead because we had to and we have to, and if we don’t, no one else will advocate for us or for other communities.
Why It Matters
You are not alone in your experience, though, your experience makes you unique. You lead your life aware of every obstacle put in your way on purpose – and yet – you move forward.
You, who dream in a language and work in another, have so much to give. You are able to connect with people in ways only your diverse soul allows you to, you are able to recognize different ways of living and being because you are different.
How valuable is that?
There are many ways to fundraise for our communities, engage and advocate for them, and we know them all.
We know them all because we are a minority, and as a minority, we are powerful.
I’d like to use my colleague’s words to end this article describing our proposals and work, “our proposals have heart,” we have heart.
Author Bio
Sawsan is a multilingual development coordinator with experience working in nonprofits on projects that advocate for women’s rights and freedoms. She is a savvy grant-writer, and relationship builder! She is also an anime lover and can’t finish a joke without laughing