rorikae's review

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challenging informative fast-paced

4.5

'Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance' by Edgar Villanueva is an informative look at philanthropy and how it perpetuates colonial systems. Through discussing his own experience working in philanthropy, Villanueva lays out how these systems perpetuate problems, feed off of white saviorism, and fail to create real change. He then lays out steps that can be taken to transform philanthropy so that it can undo colonial systems and create lasting change. Villanueva utilizes Indigenous wisdom to outline ways that philanthropic institutions can affect change to transform how we approach money. 
This is an incredibly helpful book that does a great job of balancing information, bits of memoir, and steps for transformative action. Villanueva does a great job of delving into how philanthropy props up colonial systems and how he experienced this first hand. The steps that he provides for how we can undo this harm will clearly take concentrated effort by many across the industry but they also feel doable and provide guidance that each individual can take into their daily life. 
I will definitely be following Villanueva's work as well as looking for more books that discuss how our current views and dealings with money are broken. I believe this is a crucial book that any one who works in philanthropy and/or those who donate money need to read. 

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junefish's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective slow-paced

3.75


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