By Karen Gargamelli
The Revolution Will Not Be Funded,
Edited by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. South End Press, 2001
This book serves as an important warning to young and well-intentioned activists and organizers. Beware! The Non-Profit Industrial Complex (NPIC) corrupts radical minds. The Revolution Will Not Be Funded was published the year my friends and I graduated from the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law—a small, progressive law school designed to produced “lawyers in the service of human needs.” It was evident to us, even as young graduates, that the NPIC had co-opted many of our mentors and that it would soon deflate and paralyze many of our lively and passionate classmates. We wanted to resist the NPIC and its works and its empty promises.
Myself and two others from the Class of 2007 used The Revolution Will Not Be Funded as a guide to help us interpret and navigate the world of foundations and other 501(c)(3)s. We used this book to found our own organizations—Common Law, Inc. in 2007 and Organizing4Occupation in 2011. Continue reading
