Putting Our Money Where Our Hearts Are

Conversations about money have gotten more interesting lately at Red Cedar Meeting here in Lansing, Michigan. They used to feel perfunctory: an annual budget proposal, monthly reports on how our actual activity matched our plans, updates on the pace of contributions, and safe storage of funds at a local credit union. But a shift began four years ago when we united in a minute in which we committed ourselves to become an antiracist faith community. Since we had no solid definition or road map, we acknowledged that we would have to conjure up what that meant as we lived into it. Still, a number of us had spent several years educating ourselves about systemic racism, and a conviction had grown among us that it was time to stop learning from others and start acting in conscience, even if we stumbled along the way. The minute reads: 

We affirm that embracing anti-racism means making a deliberate effort to appreciate the pernicious effects of racist policies and racial biases on people of color and indigenous people. Further, being committed to anti-racism means identifying harmful social practices, past and present, and how they are perpetuated—so that we might put energy and effort into dismantling them and making the repairs that are possible. This is the work to which we are committed.

As one of our starting steps, we asked each committee to reflect on what actions might fall within its purview that could address some of the harm of racism’s never-ending toll on Black people’s bodies and minds, and on all of our souls. We did not intentionally aim to use money as a vehicle for action, but in retrospect three financial initiatives have developed from our exploration.

We don’t always agree about what responsibility we feel for the broad systemic dynamics beyond our control. But most of us resonate with opting for integrity when we can find a place to do so, even though our actions cannot change whole systems.

Learning about Black Banking

Our Finance Committee was the first to offer a way to use our money in service to our testimonies when they proposed that we move our long-term maintenance fund to Black-owned Liberty Bank in Detroit. The committee members read Mehrsa Baradaran’s The Color of Money, which explores the history of Black financial institutions and the structural reasons that have caused many to fail (the committee developed a study guide to encourage others to learn). Committee members were disturbed to learn that the central reason Black banking has been unable to achieve its promise is not regulatory obstacles (although those have also been egregious) but rather perpetual patterns of social and economic segregation in our society. Black banks often succeeded in attracting deposits of Black-owned assets but then, due to the segregated nature of property ownership and industry, ended up lending them out into mostly white markets, thus moving economic growth in the opposite direction they had hoped for. The committee also came to appreciate the additional financial challenge for banks whose main customers make small deposits and frequent withdrawals, which has historically been the case for Black-owned banks. These factors reduce the funds that banks have available for investment and money multiplication. That structural challenge in particular led the committee to propose (and the meeting to approve) moving our long-term maintenance fund—our largest asset after our building—into a Black-owned bank. The committee chose Liberty Bank because of its well-documented and proactive local program encouraging first-time homeowners of Color.

Taking this step together did not actually cost us any resources; the fund was intact and earning interest. But it was a reminder that decisions about the resources we control together can be an arena for shared action. And the discussion really has been more interesting—perhaps more spiritually significant—than our business-as-usual money conversations. We moved beyond the testimony of stewardship of what is ours into talking about what the testimonies of integrity and equality require of us. We noted and reflected about our willingness or our reluctance to step outside conventional money management wisdom . . . and about what fed either of those instincts. We don’t always agree about what responsibility we feel for the broad systemic dynamics beyond our control. But most of us resonate with opting for integrity when we can find a place to do so, even though our actions cannot change whole systems.

Contributing to Reparative Justice

We were mightily gifted with the opening that has flowered into our second financial witness: annual payments that actually do transfer some wealth from our predominantly white meeting to local People of Color as reparations for generations of racialized harm. Though we were indeed lucky with this opening, we had independently laid the groundwork for our choice to step into it. Our Peace and Social Justice Committee had been learning about the case for reparations. Friends had read the work of authors of Color to understand very different life experiences. Learning about our own history in Fit For Freedom, Not for Friendship rocked all who read it. Viewing a locally produced documentary They Even Took the Dirt, which is about local 1970s highway construction, made the notion of harm very personal and local. Pendle Hill’s “Aiming for Justice” workshops used reparations to raise joy and empowerment to replace guilt. From these experiences, we groped for how to begin. Then way opened.

Willye Bryan, a visionary Black leader, was inspired by her work on the national level to return to her local Lansing Presbyterian church and begin to organize a vehicle for white people of faith to shift racial guilt into racial responsibility by transferring some accumulated wealth back to their Black neighbors. The Justice League of Greater Lansing Michigan, which she founded, issued an invitation to predominantly white faith communities, who understood their privilege and accepted some responsibility for tolerating historic inequities, to join in public apology to their neighbors of Color. Then the League asked congregations to see what each could add to their goal of a $1 million endowment under the control of Black leaders for supporting college education, first-time home ownership, and business start-ups for People of Color.

Some congregations held endowments from which they were able to make some large donations. Others owned and sold property, again for large donations. These options were not possible for us, but we were able to unite in a commitment to set aside a substantial portion of our annual operating budget for reparative justice payments.

From annual budgets that now approach $80,000, we have made two annual payments of $7,000 to the endowment, and some members now volunteer their labor and spirits to the League’s ongoing work. These steps have felt responsive to our debt to the descendants of slavery, but we have also acknowledged from the beginning the need for reparative practices with our local Indigenous communities as well. The recipients of our payments may shift, but we retain the intention to tender our conscience, recognize our debt, and claim our agency in movement toward a more just and equitable world.

We have been moved spiritually since this opening emerged. Our relatively small but, for us, substantial annual payments—not contributions—feel like real action that we collectively offer. Our reparations work with other faith communities is more ecumenical than most of our other peace and justice efforts. And we are excited that the Justice League is gaining attention as a model for local reparations efforts elsewhere. But we are not done. What happens when some serious future expense challenges our budget and our unity? Will support remain solid for all decisions made by the League’s Black leadership for using some of “our money”? How does each of us understand responsibility and payments for the legacy of slavery? Still, our annual payments have set the ground for challenge and discernment about money and racial justice that was not possible before.

Becoming a place where neighbors can look for help comes with real tension and discomfort as we practice setting limits. . . . We need to find a way to keep attenders from having to negotiate such limits with anyone who comes in the door while they’re here. We are finding it a good spiritual practice to welcome these challenges instead of being annoyed at having our smooth existence troubled. 

Growing into our Tiny Pantry

A third initiative began in 2020 as we were all reeling from COVID’s onslaught. One of Red Cedar’s college students had come home for Christmas and observed to her dad that “tiny pantries” (modeled after tiny free libraries) were beginning to show up around town, where people could leave free food for others to take what they needed, no questions asked. Why, she asked, couldn’t Red Cedar do the same?

After numerous fits, starts, and stumbles with box design; build; and worries about zoning, sustainability, and liability, the project has now—four years later—surprisingly become our largest financial witness to our testimonies of equality, inclusion, and community. “Surprisingly” because, unlike the other two initiatives that were proposed with cost projections and adopted with a clear, collective judgment that we could afford them, our Tiny Pantry grew organically from taking one human-to-human step at a time. We began with people simply stopping by to bring items from their car trunk after grocery shopping and someone else moving things to the pantry each day.

Soon it became clear that our offerings did not necessarily match the most popular items being sought (not many of us brought Vienna sausages) and that some of us were better bargain shoppers than others, stretching what we could give further. So we evolved toward a system where we individually contributed money to an extraordinary, visionary volunteer who compiled a list of what people actually wanted, narrowed down the packaging options to those that did not require can openers and had no breakable glass, and began proactively bargain shopping in cost-effective bulk.

We found that about $25–$30 of groceries fit into our box, and it was emptied on most days. We added a $1,500 line item to our operating budget for gaps when contributions fell short, but it was nowhere near the $900 per month that we were coming to see we needed. We began several (now annual) fundraisers. Crafters and bakers among us produce items each year for sale at the community’s Alternative Holiday Sale, and this fall’s multi-family yard sale netted a welcome $1,400.

When we catch our breath to add it all up, we realize that the volunteers who “feed the pantry” daily have put $11,000 of food in that box each year. It feels a bit like loaves and fishes! Where did it come from, one grocery bag at a time? We are pretty sure anyone proposing an $11,000 program back in 2020 would have been quickly set straight about limits to our capacity. But one can of soup at a time, we have truly surprised ourselves.

Our volunteers report that they have been changed by the conversations they have had with the neighbors who stop by to fill their bags. And closer connections with people who use the pantry challenge us in growth-producing ways. “No questions asked” is an absolute, but we all report needing to grow out of reflexive judgment about who uses the pantry. Becoming a place where neighbors can look for help comes with real tension and discomfort as we practice setting limits: no, we do not allow camping in the (sheltered, attractive) backyard of our meetinghouse, even though we have put benches there for resting. No, we cannot manage an on-site Porta Potty, even as we recognize the need. Yes, you are welcome to join us at potluck. But no, you cannot clean out the refreshment table into your backpack. Well, yes and no, some of us are okay with explicit requests for money from someone waiting by the front door as they arrive for worship, and some of us are not. Yes, we need to find a way to keep renters from having to negotiate such limits with anyone who comes in the door while they’re here. We are finding it a good spiritual practice to welcome these challenges instead of being annoyed at having our smooth existence troubled.

Money isn’t everything, of course. And we have made other kinds of progress in leaning into what kind of antiracist faith community we want to be; that is another set of stories. But we can say experientially that thoughtful conversations about new uses for financial resources have opened possibilities, challenged assumptions, and stretched our involvement in social and racial justice.