Philanthropist Spotlight: La'Meshia Whittington
Name: La’Meshia Whittington (she/her)
Hometown: Morganton, NC
How did your philanthropy story get started?
My philanthropy journey started prior to my introduction to the word. Growing up, in my household, my mother and my grandmother followed the deep Black Southern tradition of helping your neighbor, often in the form of mutual aid, Elder assistance and community care. My brother and I were reared to actively offer and find support resources that would fill the gaps in our communities. That led us to co-founding an arts based non profit when we’re barely out of high school and college.
Through this we fundraised, assisted schools in grant writing and even our grandmother was an active funder to donate what money she could to assist us in purchasing instruments, traveling to community centers, alternative schools and rehabilitation centers across North Carolina to directly teach marginalized youth music lessons for free. Through our efforts, we were able to gift students their own guitars or violins or keyboards to continue the love of music after their matriculation from our classes; or we fundraised for the schools and equipped them with instruments and resource aid to hire consistent after school music teachers. Our curriculum, our resources and our love for music allowed us to reach students in over 50 NC counties, 4-5 states and across 3 continents.
Through this experience, I gained the introduction to the concept of a family foundation, individual donor fundraising, mutual aid and collaborative partnerships to fill gaps when state and local government funding failed to meet those needs.
What does philanthropy mean to you?
Philanthropy is intersectional and broadly means two things for me:
1. We are our own philanthropists, whether we carry the title or not. Philanthropy is defined as “the desire to promote the welfare of others…” This can be in the form of monetary support or other resources that assist in the welfare of a people. Annually, Black families contribute an estimated $11 billion in donations to charitable causes and local efforts from their personal earnings. There are similar figures of giving from Hispanic communities and Asian American households. Philanthropy is embedded in our traditions to care for one another and to stretch our last dollar to help someone in a more dire situation than our own.
2. Philanthropy is a concept that highlights the inequities present in our nation, that there is a clear wealth divide in this country and that philanthropy is an industry designed to move money and in turn allow the wealthy contributors to reap tax benefits for their charitable donations. The truth, historically, certain communities were extracted from while other communities benefited financially from this systematic extraction.
So philanthropy additionally means a form of reparations owed. That as I heard in my household growing up “Old money in this country, is actually our money.” Meaning our communities have suffered through forced labor, blood shed, death, economic extraction, lack of dignified and clean jobs, and intentional divestment and there is a financial and resource recompense for our generational contributions to this nation. A nation that we built from the ground up and therefore contributed directly to the wealth of certain individuals and communities that are now wealthy philanthropists.
How do you support your community?
I serve in broad and intersectional roles to help stand in the gaps for communities with their consent. I am a fundraiser, fund advisor, funder, researcher, social scientist, facilitator, grassroots organizer, narrative development specialist assisting community organizations and leaders in articulating their narrative for outreach and fundraising goals.
Additionally, I coordinate relationship development and communication management between federal, state, local government, non profits, corporations and BIPOC and rural communities, who oftentimes are invisible to state budget priorities or are rendered invisible because they are unincorporated or heirs property.
Through these efforts I have assisted in moving millions of dollars directly into communities direct to the source, instrumental in funding drinking water infrastructure for the first time in unincorporated communities, paying for direct assistance services to keep people sheltered and lights on. I also work on policy to ensure there is advocacy, affordability programs and aid assistance from state and federal agencies built into their decision making processes on the front end.
How can others get involved and give?
Giving doesn’t just mean money, it can be skill sharing, relationship development, offering cultural capital opportunities for folks who may not have the access to certain experiences, getting your hands dirty to muck out a home of an elder who is facing water damage from a recent storm event (with their consent), volunteering for local organizations who may be at budget capacity and can’t hire that extra staff person but you can help fill a part of a need in that mission critical time.
However, if you don’t have the spare time but have some spare change, donate that directly to on the ground organizations, throw fundraisers or purchase nights with local restaurants, create a giving circle and grow from there. In my experience, giving is a global network of people of who simply began their philanthropy journey making an impact at home or in the communities closest to them.