Our Funding & Relationship to Money
“It’s easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism.”
- Frederic Jameson
At Rites & Responsibilities, we believe that part of our collective healing comes from practicing ways of being with money and resource flow rooted in gifting, trust, and reciprocity.*
We understand capitalism as it’s widely practiced today—insistent on endless growth, exploitation of land and bodies, and externalized ecological and social costs—to be both a cause and a symptom of ever-deepening disconnection from our bodies, land, and life-giving community. We believe that how we gift, share, and exchange resources is itself a form of ceremony, supporting us to transform feelings like fear, shame, greed, and a sense of scarcity, that can often emerge around money.
We believe that for our practices to truly be part of cultural healing, they cannot be available only to those with wealth—nor should cultural healing practitioners be left without adequate financial support.
We also recognize and honor that charging money for ceremony is in direct conflict with the teachings of many traditions, particularly Indigenous teachings. We commit to being in integrity with this tension out of respect for our Indigenous teachers, collaborators, chosen family, and our relationship with ceremony itself.
Based on our learning to date, these core principles guide our way with money:
building trust through incremental change
resource flow based on needs & reparative action
gift-centered, non-coercive resource flow
transparency & collaboration
We are committed to making our ceremonial work available to all, regardless of financial means. At the same time, we increasingly feel the limitations on what we are able to offer given our financial realities. Each of us has our own money story, based on family of origin, current financial circumstances, and more, that can make giving and receiving complicated. How might we deepen our individual and collective inquiries into the stories we carry around money in ways that create more space? We invite our communities into partnership around this and related questions.
*We give special gratitude to Orland Bishop, Gigi Coyle, and Krystyna Jurzykowski who helped root us in this path, Erin Selover who has been both a mentor and enthusiastic collaborator, as well as projects like Solidarity Economy, Decolonizing Wealth, and Nonviolent Global Liberation that motivate and embolden us.
Here is some of what we experience as true:
We have direct financial expenses in order to offer our work; funds received are first allocated to cover these expenses.
Our offerings represent a significant portion of our working capacity, and what we are able to offer is directly proportional to having our basic needs met.
We are buoyed not just by contributions of cash, but also by gifts of time, services, and material goods.
No one on our team has independent wealth; we need regular, ongoing, and sufficient income to cover expenses for ourselves and our respective families, plan for our futures, and contribute to mutual aid in our networks.
Nourishing Futures, our organizational home, has overhead costs that support the ongoing health of Rites & Responsibilities, to which we’d like to contribute.
We hold a responsibility to the direct redistribution and reparations of funds for Black and Indigenous-led cultural restoration projects toward healing the wounds of colonization that is deeply intertwined with this work.
“Money is like water. Water can be a precious life-giving resource. But what happens when water is dammed, or when a water cannon is fired on protestors in subzero temperatures? Money should be a tool of love, to facilitate relationships, to help us thrive, rather than to hurt and divide us. If it’s used for sacred, life-giving, restorative purposes, it can be medicine. Money, used as medicine, can help us decolonize.”
- Activist and author Edgar Villanueva
Ways to Support Our Work
What kind of support is needed at this time?
Rites & Responsibilities is poised for a significant stage of growth. After years focused on singular efforts such as publishing our guidebook, the Methow Valley Community Ceremony, and the 9-Month Course, we are ready to increase our presence, visibility, and offerings both locally and online.
There are four main forms of support needed to help expand our efforts:
1. Financial support: By making a financial gift or hiring us for well-paid consulting, coaching, and/or facilitation gigs, you can help us meet our personal financial needs, hire contractors and gift community members offering their time freely to the project, pay for physical supplies and fixed costs, and contribute back to Black and Indigenous-led efforts.
2. Time and expertise: By donating your time and expertise to our efforts, you can help extend our work and reduce our financial expenses.
3. Building connections: By introducing us to individuals, communities, organizations, and foundations you think might be excited by our work and have something to receive from and/or give to what we’re doing, you can help increase our visibility, understand more deeply what others are needing or learning, and engage wider support.
4. Partnership: By supporting us in forming partnerships with well-known organizations on specific projects or initiatives, you can help increase community recognition, understanding, and trust in our work, and help people begin to see the role of community-based ritual practice within vibrant community life.
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Grow our existing offerings, like the Methow Valley Ceremony and the 9-Month Online course;
Pilot additional public offerings, like a Methow Valley youth rite of passage, a multi-part radio series based on the book, a series on eldering, and more;
Generate additional resources to both support our work and support community healers, artists, ceremonial leaders, culture workers, and visionaries who have important offerings to make to their communities and are similarly constrained by financial realities;
Convene and host community conversations and processes to understand more deeply what offerings will meet current needs and explore specific themes;
Take a deep breath from time to time as we integrate all of the changes in our lives and in the world, fostering a culture of sustainability, ongoing renewal, and integrated cycles of action and reflection;
Strengthen the networks we’re part of, weaving accessible ritual and ceremony more deeply into the fabric of our community.
If you are in a position to uplift our efforts, we welcome your support.
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Imagine the possibility of not contributing anything, and receiving the gifts of participating in some way. What is it to feel welcome and included beyond transaction?
Imagine the possibility of giving generously to this important community-building offering. What is it to feel abundant and generous, whatever that means for you?
Imagine the possibility of giving so that it feels like a stretch—but not an overstretch. What is it to move with dignity, honoring your real capacity?
To make a tax deductible financial contribution, you can:
Write a check to Nourishing Futures, 1988 Wild Oak Lane, Chico CA 95928 (memo line: Rites & Responsibilities)
Make an online donation
If you wish for your gift to go directly toward any specific offerings, please indicate that.
To make a different sort of contribution, please reach out to us.
