Publications

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Transformative Donor Organizing

Free the People

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Resources

free the people to free the money to

free the people to free the money to

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  • Through intimate first-person accounts, strategic analysis, and hard-won wisdom, contributors reveal what it actually looks like to organize across class—the relationships built, experiments tried, victories won, and mistakes made. These pages contain never-before-shared reflections and lessons, tracing a many-decades-old lineage...from Amalgamated Rich Folks to Threshold Foundation, from Funding Exchange and Resource Generation to Way to Win and Solidaire, from Chinese Progressive Association to Working Families Party.

    At a time when billionaires shape elections and inequality reaches historic levels, this anthology offers both hope and practical wisdom. It shows how the wealthy can be organized not just as donors, but as full participants in creating a just future—freeing the people to free the money to free the people.

    Contributors include: Winona LaDuke, Rajasvini Bhansali, Iimay Ho, Braeden Lentz, Michael Gast, Linda Burnham, Max Elbaum, Alex T. Tom, Chuck Collins, Marian Moore, Billy Wimsatt, Nigel Charles, Leah Hunt-Hendrix, Sharon Chen and Mijo Lee. 

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  • "This book documents what so many of us know but rarely see in print: organizing the wealthy is both possible and essential to our collective wellbeing. Michael Gast, Marian Moore, Alex Tom and these contributors offer honest stories from the messy work of moving money and power toward justice—showing us how the rich can be co-conspirators, not saviors, in building a different world."

    Edgar Villanueva
    Author, Decolonizing Wealth

  • “I just finished reading “Free the People…” and I’m jazzed! This anthology is chock-full of personal stories, strategic analyses, and practical ideas that collectively make me feel ready to organize resources better. It is sharp, poignant, and timely. A better world is possible. And this book is a key tool to getting there.”  

    Regan Pritzker
    Kataly Foundation

  • “Reimagining a world where working-class people thrive requires the wealthy to rethink the inherent value of the class privilege they’ve come to rely on. As we see rising authoritarianism and staggering wealth inequality, this anthology is an important and timely reminder of our agency and obligations to one another. The one percent can choose to play a productive role in ushering in a world that values human potential, happiness, and solidarity.” 

    Maurice Mitchell
    Executive Director, Working Families Party

  • “This book takes you on a journey that braids together the lineage of resource organizers and connects them directly to some of the most powerful social movements in history. This anthology is a reminder that money and resources must be liberated from the shackles of capitalism in order for our people to be free and the land to heal. At this moment in history our resistance is required for our survival and the revolution must be funded”

    Nick Tilsen
    Oglala Lakota, Founder & CEO NDN Collective

  • "Arriving right on time, Free the People to Free the Money to Free the People  was so helpful to me - as I know it will be for countless leaders, wherever they are in their journey around money. The webs of relationships and personal narratives paint a compelling picture of a body of work that is often hidden or hard to make sense of. By making it open for all to see, we can resource our movements more boldly."

    May Boeve
    Founder and Executive Director of 350.org

  • "Free the People to Free the Money to Free the People offers an intimate window into a little-known history of an emerging movement for cross-class solidarity and wealth redistribution. This anthology brings together brilliant, respected voices in the sector who, with the candor of a late-night retreat conversation, share hard-won lessons from the messy and necessary work of redistributing wealth and power. Humble, honest, and alive, this book feels both like a roadmap and a living journal—arriving right on time as we navigate the Great Wealth Transfer and reimagine how those with resources can help build a more just future."

    Dimple Abichandani
    Advisor and Author of A New Era of Philanthropy: Ten Practices to Transform Wealth Into a More Just and Sustainable Future

  • "In a time of authoritarian resurgence and extreme wealth concentration, this book breaks the silence about what it truly takes to move resources—and people—toward justice. At Women Donors Network, we’ve seen how transformative it is when wealth holders move beyond writing checks and align their full resources and influence with movements. This anthology captures that same truth: philanthropy alone will not save us, but collective organizing across class can. This not only makes it timely, but urgent and necessary."

    Leena Barakat
    Executive Director, Women Donors Network

  • "Wow, we have needed this for so long and it is here!  An empowering guidebook for wealthy folks, the people who love them, and the people who organize them.  The stories in this anthology demystify what it takes to confront and shift power dynamics, and demonstrate that not only is it possible to organize the rich for the common good, it has been happening for generations.  I've been inspired by some of these stories colloquially over my past 25 years of resource mobilizing, and it is so exciting to read them in print and have them available to pass along."

    Sha Grogan-Brown
    Long time movement Resource Mobilizer and current Co-Director of the Rad Ops project

Transformative Donor Organizing

The Developing Theory & Practice of

  • We are living in an era of rising authoritarianism, climate collapse, extreme inequality and endless war. The Right invests billions of dollars to shape the future — while visionary grassroots movements rooted in working-class communities and communities of color remain chronically underfunded.

    This book offers a radical alternative to traditional donor engagement. Transformative Donor Organizing is about moving wealthy progressives from inconsistent check-writers to committed comrades — people who give the majority of their wealth to build grassroots power, wield their influence in service of Left strategy and organize others to do the same.

    Inside, you’ll discover a bold methodology that blends deep political education, personal transformation, leadership development, collective action and a close-knit community of belonging. The goal: to unlock tens of billions of dollars for movements that can transform our political economy and build a future where every person lives with dignity, love and power.

    Isaac Lev Szmonko is the organizing director at Solidaire Network. He has been organizing wealthy people to join movements for liberation for over 15 years.

    Published by Solidaire and Organize the Rich.

Isaac Lev Szmonko

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RESOURCES

  • We Gave Away A Fortune:

    Stories and Lessons from People with Wealth Who Acted on Their Love for the World

    by Christopher and Anne Ellinger
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    35th Anniversary re-release. 2026.

    We Gave Away a Fortune features the stories of 16 wealthy people who committed 20-99% of their assets to create a more livable world. Combining stories, exercises and reflection, it is a seminal handbook and how-to-guide for wealth holders and a seminal book in the field, reprinted in 2026 with several updates.

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  • Decolonizing Wealth

    Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance

    by Edgar Villanueva
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    A book about shifting philanthropy from a command-and-control approach to one led by Indigenous-inspired practices of healing, reciprocity, and giving power back to communities.

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  • Tax the Rich

    How Lies, Loopholes and Lobbyists Make the Rich Even Richer

    by Morris Pearl, Erica Payne and the Patriotic Millionaires
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    The book that helped launch Patriotic Millionaires – making the case, from the perspective of wealthy people themselves, that the ultra-rich should pay much higher taxes, arguing that extreme wealth concentration harms democracy and the economy as a whole.

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  • The Radical Fund

    by John Fabian Witt
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    This book tells the true story of the Garland Fund—built from a young heir's rejected million-dollar inheritance in 1922—and how its money helped launch radical movements for free speech, labor power, and racial equality that reshaped 20th-century America.

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  • Outclassed:

    How the Left Lost the Working Class and what to do about it

    by Joan Williams
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    Want to understand the classism of progressive elites and how the Democratic Party alienated the working class? This is the book for you. Offers a helpful roadmap for building progressive multi-racial cross-class coalitions.

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  • The Financial Activist Playbook

    by Jasmine Rashid
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    A practical guidebook (meant for working and middle-class people) for becoming a financial activist, taking control of your money and moving it towards the collective good.

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  • Social Change Philanthropy in America

    by Alan Rabinowitz

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  • Classified:

    How to Stop Hiding Your Privilege and Use it for Social Change

    by Karen Pittelman and Molly Hein

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  • Class Matters:

    Cross-Class Alliance Building for Middle-Class Activists

    by Betsy Leonder-Wright

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  • Born on Third Base:

    A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good

    by Chuck Collins

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  • A New Era of Philanthropy:

    Ten Practices to Transform Wealth into a more just and sustainable future

    by Dimple Abichandani

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