I never thought the Asian model minority myth would catch up to me while working at a progressive social justice nonprofit.
Until one day, it did. My supervisor Irma Shauf-Bajar and I – both of us Filipino Americans – crossed a line in philanthropy that we didn’t know existed. We broke the unspoken rules on how to be a model grantee, on how to practice and call for justice without causing a scene or bringing attention to an issue in ways that would make other people – people in power – uncomfortable.
This is the story of 18 Million Rising. We’re a national Asian American advocacy organization that mobilizes communities around racial justice, abolition, and democracy. We lost $250,000 in committed grant funding due to our Palestinian advocacy within the Asian American community.
Solidarity from Asian America to Palestine
Last year, Viet Thanh Nguyen wrote a powerful essay on Asian American solidarity with Palestine in The Nation, arguing that, “If Asian Americans decline expansive solidarity, we signal that we are not going to take over, that we know our place.” In other words, if we don’t speak up, we comply and uphold the status quo.
18MR regularly flips the table on the status quo.
We have long established ourselves as an organization known for our courage in addressing contentious political issues that others hesitate to tackle. Since October 2023, we’ve led our Asians for a Liberated Palestine campaign. We have taken decisive action across issues and sectors, including leading a viral campaign demanding The Asian American Foundation remove Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), from its board due to the ADL’s blatant Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism.
Yet, it was a single solidarity statement, which 18MR posted in October 2023, that led to the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund’s board decision to cancel the final $250,000 payment of our multi-year grant and permanently end the funding relationship in January 2025.
On January 30, Executive Director Irma Shauf-Bajar was called into a closed-door Zoom meeting with three Wellspring executives, none of whom 18MR staff have ever met. There were no personal introductions. Rather, the conversation started with Wellspring naming “This is not going to be an easy meeting.”
Within minutes, Irma learned that the Wellspring board got wind of our solidarity statement and wanted to end its contract with 18 Million Rising, effective immediately. When Irma pushed for more explanation – reminding Wellspring we had been grantees in their racial justice portfolio for the past four years – Wellspring remained staunch on their board’s reasoning. She was told that based on the timing of our statement, it appeared to imply that we were calling on Asian America to support the violence and deaths of Israelis on October 7, 2023.
That devastated us. 18MR’s solidarity was not a performance. During those first three months, many of us on staff knew friends who personally lost family members and neighbors in Israel’s responding siege on Gaza.
We felt it at our core that Wellspring’s board failed to recognize the deep connection between Asian America and Palestine. We too are the victims of U.S. imperialism and war, from forced migration to political violence to the continued extractive relationships between our homelands and America. After that Zoom meeting, we reflected as a team why our solidarity was singled out. All of us felt demoralized that a private foundation in effect pointed to our Asian American constituency as an emerging threat, and determined we weren’t aligned with more appropriate channels of justice and dissent.
This was not okay, yet the grant relationship was done. And just like that, $250,000 – a quarter of 18MR’s annual budget – was gone.
The Role of Philanthropy in Asian America’s Fight for Justice
18MR’s story of funder repression is not an isolated narrative. We are not the first organization to lose money over supporting Palestine, and we certainly won’t be the last. Moving forward, we have identified two courses of action.
First, we want to mobilize funds with values-aligned partners. Our formal appeal to Wellspring already failed, so we are not demanding a reinstatement of grant funds. They made their position clear.
Second, and more importantly, we are committed to organizing with philanthropy on funding dissent and investing in movement groups who are on the frontlines every day.
Already, more than 600 philanthropic organizations have signed on Council On Foundation’s public statement protecting the First Amendment, and social justice funders are ramping up efforts to align their sector-wide strategy and approach:
- Increase grant spending. Disburse unrestricted funds at-scale rapidly and in multi-year commitments. Like Vu Le says, “You are not just stewards of an endowment; you are stewards of justice.”
- Safeguard grantees, especially movement groups and their communities, by investing in physical and digital security. The state is increasing its use of AI and technology to surveil and target vulnerable communities as well as dissenters.
- Engage in meaningful advocacy, blocking the rise of authoritarianism that is thinly veiled in legislation like H.R. 9495 and counterterrorism laws.
For 18MR, this organized response from philanthropy is very heartening. At the same time, we won’t ignore the enduring and historical funding challenges that are present in this urgent moment for us and other Asian-led movement groups.
In October 2024, 18MR had co-sponsored a funder briefing with Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy (AAPIP) on mobilizing philanthropic support for Palestinian communities. Approximately 230 folks registered, and 120 attended live, representing over 90 different organizations. The amount of funding 18MR received as a direct result of this briefing? Zero dollars. We had 1-on-1 meetings with 10 different organizations’ program staff and executives who attended the event. They were all supportive of our work, yet many of them told us there were no funds for us in the coming fiscal year. The reasons ranged from leadership and staff restructuring, grant renewals for existing grantees only, and worst of all: “We can make the recommendation, but our board has the final decision.”
Those conversations happened at the end of 2024, however. The political climate has undeniably changed under the second Trump administration. There is an overreaching attack on movement power, social justice, and basic human rights. Philanthropic leaders, including board trustees, are now experiencing the same pressures as community organizers do in facing the far right.
It’s time to take risks together. We see an opening to move deeper into partnership with philanthropy, and help funders organize on the frontlines too. In fact, at the time of this NCRP blog post, 18 Million Rising is presenting “The Real Cost of Movement Building: A Case Study of (De)funding Community Organizers” at AAPIP’s 35th anniversary conference in Chicago. Our hope is to engage this funder audience once more and call them into action to support 18MR and other organizations like ours. We have an opportunity to sharpen the role and responsibilities of philanthropy, especially AAPI philanthropy, in the movement for racial and social justice.
Break Norms, Speak Truth to Justice
18MR is not a model grantee by any traditional standard, and we think that’s a good thing. We are constantly evolving to meet the needs of our communities, and that takes a lot of courage and experimentation.
Our challenge to philanthropy is whether you can break the mold too. Can you stand up against the government for what’s just in this politically urgent moment? Can you defend your grantees in front of your risk-averse board of trustees? Can you speak out and shape the public narrative on who deserves support and care? We call on funders to join us in redistributing power and catalyzing transformative justice with courage and vision.
To quote our organizing ancestor, Grace Lee Boggs: “We have to get rid of the old ideas of leadership and followership and use our imaginations to create the new… We’ve all been damaged by this system—it’s not only the capitalists who are the scoundrels, the villains; we are all part of it. And we all have to change what we say, what we do, what we think, what we imagine.”
Allison Celosia (she/they/siya) is the Resource Mobilization Director at 18 Million Rising (18MR). They are a queer second generation Bisaya (Filipino) American and proud daughter of immigrant parents. Prior to 18MR, she worked in various fundraising capacities supporting electoral politics, immigration justice, and youth movements. Allison has tapped into movement building through years of resource mobilization, donor organizing, coaching, and facilitation, and is an active member of Community Centric Fundraising.
