In this episode, we talk to Miranda Ling, Director of Advancement for 826 Valencia, about how they use Afrofuturism to help raise funds. Miranda explains what Afrofuturism is and how it can be used as a tool to challenge mainstream narratives and inspire new ways of thinking about the future. They share their experiences incorporating Afrofuturism into their fundraising strategies and how it has helped them engage with donors in a meaningful way. If you’re interested in innovative fundraising techniques and the power of Afrofuturism, this episode is a must-listen!
To connect with Miranda: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mirandashepherd/
To watch Miranda’s afrofuturist film-noir: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dry8z6UhZtU&feature=youtu.be (The Lavender Files | Ep. 1 From Dusk)
Some of Miranda’s author recommendations:
Octavia Butler
NK Jemisin
Tomi Adeyemi
Quote from Miranda “It’s not what we’re fighting against, it’s what we’re fighting for”
Episode Transcript
RHEA WONG 00:07
Welcome to Nonprofit Lowdown. I’m your host, Rhea Wong. Hey, podcast listeners! Rhea Wong is with you once again with Nonprofit Lowdown. I’m really excited because today my guest is my dear friend, Miranda Ling, aka Rosewater Vigilante. Miranda is the Director of Advancement for 826 Valencia in San Francisco. She herself is not only a fundraiser but also a writer. And today we’re going to talk about Afrofuturism and how that can be related to fundraising. So welcome, Miranda!
MIRANDA LING 00:38
Thanks for having me.
RHEA WONG 00:39
Before we get started, I’m curious what is Rosewater Vigilante for the folks out there listening?
MIRANDA LING 00:46
Miranda Ling is my work name and my career name. My people in life know me by name and the Rosewater Vigilante is my pen name for my creative work for the Afrofuturist stuff that I write. That is the name that I use.
RHEA WONG 00:59
Okay, for those of us who are unclear, can you give us a quick definition of Afrofuturism?
MIRANDA LING 01:06
Yes, for me, Afrofuturism is this genre of speculative fiction, where we’re talking about what could it look like to have black people in the future. What does it look like to have different narratives that are either based on black identities or what black identities could look like in the future?
RHEA WONG 01:25
And in addition to being a fundraising professional, you were also a writer. It’s perfect that you’re working for 826 Valencia, can you tell us a little bit more about the intersection of that work and your personal interests?
MIRANDA LING 01;37
I think about it as Afrofuturism for me. A big part of it is imagining a better future for black folks, a future in which we are valued, loved, taken care of, well funded, and where communities are able to actually recognize work and collaborate with the brilliance in black communities. For me, as a fundraiser, one of the things that are really important to me is being able to tell the story of not just where we are, but where we want to go, being able to say, not only is this a future that I imagine in my speculative fiction.
MIRANDA LING 02:10
This is a future that I imagined in my fundraising and to get partners invested in this whole reality that when you imagine a future, you’re making that future more possible. When you’re partnering with funders, you again, are funding that ability to make a difference. For me, it’s the intersection of that funding and being able to create that difference.
RHEA WONG02:34
Can you talk to us about how you use Afrofuturism in your fundraising to inspire and form fundraising campaigns?
MIRANDA LING 02:43
I use Afrofuturism as a reminder to dream bigger. I think one of the things in fundraising that we can really fall short is when we’re thinking, oh, well! I mean, they haven’t given a gift of this size. before. I don’t know if I can do it. Let me just do a small safe ask where I think our job as fundraisers is to ask not to necessarily make a gift happen by using that you can ask bigger than you might be comfortable for because you’re excited about this potential future.
MIRANDA LING 03:13
And you’re able to make the case of why this alliance with another person’s interest and being able to create a better future for black communities, communities of color for our brilliant youth writers. And there’s also the whole fact of our students, our writers themselves, being able to see how the futures they write, it’s a really interesting thing for me as a person, but also as a fundraiser and storyteller.
RHEA WONG 03:38
It’s so funny. I was talking with my friend, Brooke, yesterday. And she’s a black woman. And we were saying that we all need to have that white guy to remind us to ask bigger because I think leaning into that chat energy of being like, yeah! I am going to ask. I’m going to triple the amount I was thinking about because why not?
MIRANDA LING 04:01
Yeah! And even almost the Janelle Monae energy of what would happen or the Beyonce energy of what would happen if we had the funding we deserve. Even Chad doesn’t even need to be in the picture. For me, that’s the joy of Afrofuturism is that we can dream bigger based on ourselves.
MIRANDA LING 04:18
We are here because our ancestors were able to dream bigger, and in the way that I am my ancestor’s wildest dreams as a black queer femme, who has a wife and is able to have this life that literally, my black queer ancestors were dreaming about. It is our job to have wild dreams so the next generations can actually inhabit them.
RHEA WONG 04:42
Oh, my gosh! I love that so much because it has to start in the mind and you and I connected because there’s a little bit of a detour. But we were talking about money mindset and the ways in which we play small, wondering if you could just detour for us a little bit about the ways in which you’ve helped yourself to stop thinking small.
RHEA WONG 05:24
Because I saw on your LinkedIn, you’re the $30-million fundraiser. That’s a big number. And I often think especially folks of color, we do put these constraints on ourselves, right? And we pre-reject ourselves. We pre-reject the ask. So talk to me a little bit about that personal journey for you.
MIRANDA LING 05:22
I think one of the things that I realized having gone to Stanford for undergrad and my master’s degree as well, It was just recognizing that there are resources out there. The wealth is there. It is not a lack of abundance out there. It’s just the distribution of abundance needs some work. Having seen all of that, well, I recognize that. Oh, wait!
MIRANDA LING 05:48
There are folks who have these buckets of money who do want to make a difference, who are interested in changing the world and being able to provide an opportunity to say, hey, here’s a really incredible organization that’s doing work that you care about because we love XYZ, being able to align on that, and being able to ask for what you want.
MIRANDA LING 06:11
And then being able to land where you need, thinking, okay, I think it would be really ambitious to ask people to double their gifts, for example, that was a fundraising campaign during the beginning of COVID, asking folks to consider to double their investment because I was like, that seems ambitious. They’ve given a lot of funds. But this is an important time. I can make the case of why it is important for us to be investing in education at this time, would you meet the moment and step up to double your gift? And I was expecting some response. But I had a board member who doubled her gift from 1 million to 2 million.
MIRANDA LING 06:48
I had another board member who was previously giving 100k, who was able to then step up to a million, even that doubling, I thought I was dreaming big. But even more, was possible. So I think it’s being able to have that wild imagination of like, what could a million dollars do? What could $2 million? Do? What could we make possible with that amount of funding and having folks be able to lend where it fits for them?
RHEA WONG 07:17
One thing that you’re saying that I really want to lift up here is it seems to me that your background as a writer and creator is really helpful in fundraising because much of what we do is we present a compelling vision for the future for people to really invest in. Can you say a little bit about how you use storytelling and specifically Afrofuturism storytelling in the interactions that you have with donors?
MIRANDA LING 07:43
Yeah! It can look like either, one example is we have a black literary achievement club as part of 826 Valencia, and that’s working with middle and high school students, where we publish students and these professional books.
MIRANDA LING 07:57
And they get to leave as published authors talking to students about what kind of futures they think is possible, and then being able to say being able to hear their stories and be able to share those stories with donors if there is a student who is imagining this world where there’s a black superhero who can change for color based on which portal in the sky in which world and dimensions used to going to and being able to share the creativity, joy, and sense of possibility of when you give students a platform much more it’s possible.
MIRANDA LING08:33
That’s something to be able to connect to with donors saying they’re imagining another world is possible. We also know another world where students are having that individualized attention and supporting the writing where we’re able to support teachers by bringing in volunteers. That was all speculative. 20 years ago, when before 826 Valencia started. But now is something that we are literally doing.
MIRANDA LING 08:54
And the speculative part is okay, how would we make it the services that we’re offering, which are free writing, tutoring, and publishing programs for San Francisco youth? How can we make this possible for all of these students and schools that don’t have enough funding? How would it be possible to support all of these teachers who are having 30 kids in a classroom with an additional five or six volunteers and our trained staff to come in and work with our students one on one?
MIRANDA LING 09:22
What would be possible then? And being able to pose that question as well as mention examples of our alumni folks like Javier Zamora, who was in our program as a high schooler but is now a New York Times bestselling author for his memoir, Solito, and being able to say these are the writers of tomorrow.
MIRANDA LING 09:40
These are the thinkers of tomorrow. These are the future leaders that we have and being able to support them by telling their own stories is something that not only benefits the students but benefits us as a society. We are better off when we hear their stories and listen to the students and our world will be better when we’re investing in our youth.
RHEA WONG 10:04
What strikes me Miranda is much of the last couple of years, we’ve had different conversations at the institutional level about philanthropy, particularly following George Floyd’s murder, and the Black Lives Matter movement. And I guess what I’m struck by is the way that you talk about Afrofuturism, it feels like a community rooted in joy and possibility versus black pain. And I’m really, I don’t know, is there a response to that? Is that on purpose?
MIRANDA LING 10:36
Yeah, that is absolutely true. One of the many joys of my life was when I was teaching in class on race, policing, and mass incarceration by Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt, we had a guest lecturer who happened to be the one and only Davis. And as the TA, I got to have dinner with her and with a lot of other folks who are organizing the program. And my question for her, as someone who has been doing the work for decades, was like, how do you not burn up?
MIRANDA LING 11:04
And to paraphrase her response it was about it’s not what we’re fighting against. It’s what we’re fighting for. And being able to keep that top of mind, being able to remember the why behind wanting a better future for our people being able to connect to what we’re fighting for is more love, and more justice, and freedom, and all of these really exciting and invigorating things.
MIRANDA LING 11:33
It’s not just fighting against stuff because you will burn out if you are just going against things. Because it is the systems that are built to break you down and are built to resist the resistance. It’s not just breaking down what used to be, but it’s also building what can be possible in the future and what you think should be possible in the future.
RHEA WONG 12:00
I’d love to live in this world of future casting with you, right? Because I think historically, philanthropy in this country, and in particular, institutional philanthropy. There’s been a very traditional model. There are a lot of white saviors and tropes and the idea of some old white dude behind a desk making decisions about funding in your wildest dreams, how might Afrofuturism change the way that philanthropy is done in this country?
MIRANDA LING 12:30
In my wildest dreams, it would be philanthropy with this idea of radical generosity and recognizing that there is a need for a redistribution of wealth and that these organizations or foundations or philanthropic institutions that have funds. The idea would be to give it all away to organizations and to folks actually making the difference to actually give it all away because I know a lot of foundations will give away the bare minimum or what is a little bit, but recognizing that we don’t want a future where philanthropy is needed forever.
MIRANDA LING 13:08
We want a future where these problems have been solved with the funding that we have today. I think having emptying out those dabs, having folks actually give the funding that is there being able to spend it down recognizing that we don’t that philanthropic institutions don’t need to live forever. If we are solving problems today and thinking about that radical mindset of what would happen if those coffers were emptied and redistributed? And what kind of role is possible, then?
RHEA WONG 13:38
What are some of the common misconceptions of Afrofuturism? Because I do think is that can be for people who are unfamiliar with what that means, that could be, oh, I don’t know if that’s a conversation I want to have. What are some of the common obstacles and misconceptions that you experience?
MIRANDA LING 13:55
Yeah! I think part of it is this idea that it’s exclusionary and saying that black people only wear crummy Afrofuturism and saying there are black people in the future. Because when you are seeing a lot of particularly sci-fi and the stories of the future written not by people of color or written by white folks, a lot of times it’ll be all these will go on a spaceship. And it’s like literally, where on Earth did we survive? Was there a genocide that we are talking about?
MIRANDA LING 14:25
How did it get that way? And being able to say actually Afrofuturism is saying there are black people in the future. There are other people in the future as well. And it’s not saying there are only black people in the future but saying that we exist now and we exist in the future and trying to make space for black features that aren’t just trauma and pain and suffering but our joy and liberation and being able to have fun space drama. That’s not just traumatic shit.
RHEA WONG 14:55
How about you enter into that conversation? Let’s say you have a white donor, and when you say Afrofuturism, they may not understand the scope of what that means. They may not understand what you’re talking about. How do you come from a space of the spirit of Afrofuturism and get people to where you’re on the same page?
MIRANDA LING 15:19
I’m not going to jump in with a word like futurism because even in this conversation, it’s clear that’s something that really needs a definition. It’s more about asking questions and understanding. It’s a literacy aspect of our work that appeals to them. Is it supporting the youth voices of tomorrow? Is it interested in having our students published? What is this future that we’re both excited about and then being able to talk to that?
MIRANDA LING 15:45
It’s not necessarily saying, I’m an Afrofuturist and this is the future that I imagined for just the students. I have seen the impact of the black literary achievement club, having participated as a mentor for a year and seeing students grow from being reluctant writers to being really proud published authors presenting their work at the Museum of the African diaspora that actually happened this fall.
MIRANDA LING 16:12
I was actually signing books to say that this is their work. And it was an author signing table with our student authors, and being able to connect again, that sense of possibility of what kind of joyful futures are possible when we’re funding programs that are investing in youth. Because that’s an area of connection.
MIRANDA LING 16:33
Or, if it’s something around more economic opportunities, or making it folks are having opportunities as they’re growing up to be able to work in different fields, being able to say, like communication and writing is something that’s necessary for all of these fields.
MIRANDA LING 16:47
And here’s how it has helped students become both New York Times bestselling writers, but also be able to work in the FinTech space in Silicon Valley. It’s really understanding what kind of future they’re excited about, and being able to connect. Here’s how the work we are doing today is making that future more possible.
RHEA WONG 17:06
I’m listening to you on the podcast, or here on this Zoom call, and because I think what’s practical about Afrofuturism, which I think is radical for, dare I say, all communities of color is to imagine a world of possibility in the future that is not traumatic and awful and violent. How might you suggest that folks who want to explore what Afrofuturism could look like for them and in their fundraising practice do? Like any practical tips.
MIRANDA LING 17:41
One practical tip that both for fundraisers, but for all kinds of folks, this is a practice that I did, both with students in our black literary achievement club. And at Stanford, when I was supporting a class that was talking about black liberation and freedom this idea of writing yourself a permission manifesto, where you like, literally, take some take five minutes with a notebook and sit like, I give myself permission to ask big.
MIRANDA LING 18:07
I give myself permission to recognize that I can ask for funds. And even if the answer is no, that’s okay. I give myself permission to fail sometimes. I give myself permission to take risks. And just writing over and over again. I give myself permission to is a really good practice of being able to say, oh, wait! Like, there are all these things that I have been waiting for some other entity to give me permission to do these things.
MIRANDA LING 18:34
But the only permission I really need is me. And being able to start with yourself and give yourself that permission to dream bigger, ask bigger, believes in a better future, and being able to tie that back to the work that you’re doing. Another practice that I really liked and I’ve done with my team is actually writing a letter to yourself, a letter of gratitude, but from yourself from a year from being able to say like, and I’m glad we over raised.
MIRANDA LING 19:05
I’m glad we hit all of our targets. I am grateful that this idea that you came up with was really successful and just writing from the space of actually inhabiting the excitement and joy and satisfaction that comes from actually meeting and exceeding goals and being able to approach that work with gratitude for yourself for the work that you’ve put in and/or the work that you’re going to be putting in over the next year.
MIRANDA LING 19:29
And I found that as a really helpful reframe when we’re talking about strategic planning. Sometimes, it can be like, oh, this is big. This is scary. I don’t know how it’s exactly going to work for the next tomorrow, the day after, but being able to kind of zoom out and be like, what would it look like if we were able to meet all of those goals and exceed all of those goals?
MIRANDA LING 19:50
And come from that space of possibility and appreciation makes it a much more fun conversation and also gets you out of that kind of fight or flight mode where you’re not able to imagine or be creative to this generative space where you’re feeling comfortable enough to be creative and recognizing that the future that you’re envisioning is possible with the tools that you have, or with collaboration with other folks who have those tools that you don’t.
RHEA WONG 20:21
One thing that’s like tickling my brain right now, is that I am loving what you’re saying, which is really about engaging the prefrontal cortex to get the amygdala out of the fight but flight freeze. And I’m also just thinking, particularly for fundraisers of color, burnout is a huge issue, and wondering how have you counteracted burnout. To go back to your earlier point, like, what pulls you and how might you advise other fundraisers of color who might be finding this work hard? Or might be finding that they’re in situations where they’re experiencing micro or even macro aggressions?
MIRANDA LING 20:59
Absolutely, I know, for me, one of the biggest supports is the fact that I not only am like the director of the advancement, get to lead the marketing, communications, and fundraising, but I also get to tutor in our classrooms with students once a week. It’s like being able, for me, it’s on Tuesdays, like going into tenderloin community school and getting to work with this classroom full of brilliant third graders and getting to reconnect on that really personal basis with this group of four students that I’ve been working with since September, and getting to see their progress where one student like he’s writing his letter to himself.
MIRANDA LING 21:41
And he is including dialogue as a third grader, and is having all of these brilliant ideas and being able to connect to the why behind the work. It’s not just like, I’m not just like asking for money, I am able to support the funding of an organization that is bringing in all of these adults to give attention to these brilliant, brilliant kids who have many good ideas and need more individualized attention and being able to, for me, again, it’s connecting to the why.
MIRANDA LING 22:12
Having that connection to not just talking about students or talking about our programs, but actually being able to participate in them and have that emotional impact. This is impactful and meaningful for me. I’m better able to speak about this with external folks. And I think as far as generalized burnout, I think it’s also like when recognizing your own limits, and being able to say like, alright, I’m going to put down the laptop at 5 pm.
MIRANDA LING 22:43
And like, actually close it down as being able to create boundaries for yourself and recognizing that you’re saying no to things that are making, saying yes to the things you actually want to say yes to more possible, I think like as Oprah said, like, no is a full sentence. Being able to recognize that you are able to make demands and make asks and advocate for yourself.
MIRANDA LING 23:07
And if you’re in a situation that feels rough, like imagine a better situation, and then go find that maybe at another organization. We do ourselves a disservice by not recognizing the talents that we have. And as fundraisers of color, were able to speak to a lot of this work. That’s oftentimes working with communities of color. We’re able to speak to it in a really unique way. And other organizations will also appreciate and see that and if you’re not feeling seen or appreciated, maybe that’s not the place to be. Maybe it’s time to make a move.
MIRANDA LING 23:41
Also recognizing that if you’re not in an organization that is supporting you, like if a microaggression happens, and you share it with someone, and they’re just like, oh, that sucks! That’s time to go versus an organization’s like, okay, how do I support you in that? How do we make this better?
MIRANDA LING 23:57
Maybe that’s a donor, we don’t need to work with him anymore in the future. Being able to say like, being able also to name when those things are happening and asking for the support that is needed to be able to process some of that because that is definitely something that happens.
RHEA WONG 24:14
Yeah! I 100% agree and get the thing that’s coming up for me is that we feel disempowered when we feel like we don’t have a choice when we’re back against a wall. The truth is like you always have a choice. And particularly if you’re a fundraiser and a fundraiser of color, like you’re kind of sitting in the driver’s seat right now. We’re in a moment where A: people are not finding the development staff that they need and B: desperately looking for folks of color to take on roles and positions of leadership.
MIRANDA LING 24:47
Y’all do not suffer. You know not. And don’t underestimate the value that you’re bringing. I think that’s another piece of Afrofuturism. It’s recognizing the bounty of the gifts that we have already and being able to see that like, I think it’s Octavia Butler. And forgive me if this is a misquote, but she’s saying as the best science fiction tells us about today, that it’s the idea of being able to understand the moment that we are right now using science fiction as a way into that.
RHEA WONG 25:20
Okay, this is a really interesting question, because right now, everything that science fiction is super dystopic, and like, really not fun. Like, I just watched The Last of Us and I’m like, damn! This future is really bleak y’all. The fungi are gonna take over our brains. But I guess I’m wondering like, what does it look like to imagine a future that is not the zombie apocalypse? Like, how do we get out of the doom spiral that I feel like we’ve all been in in the last three years?
MIRANDA LING 25:53
Yeah! I think one specific example that I really like is a series of short stories, How Long ’til Black Future Month by N.K. Jemisin, which like, number one, the title already got me. But one of the stories and they’re the ones who stay in the fight is about the city that is celebrating farmers.
MIRANDA LING 26:12
That is an alternate kind of world where they have been able to address racism and sexism. Where there are social services, supporting all people where there is this appreciation for all types of labor and not just the certain kinds in the capitalistic system that we have where there’s this different system entirely. I think it’s like recognizing that there are different stories of the future.
MIRANDA LING 26:41
And recognizing, like, if this is a story that is just like, bringing me down, I don’t need to read that. I want stories that excite and interest me or are telling me about worlds I didn’t even know were possible. And I’ll also say like, our students write incredible stories.
MIRANDA LING 26:59
There’s one of our students who were interested in starting her own community health center, as an adult told the story of a city that is able to be basically a community health center that is able to provide people with all of the support they need for their wellness, and being able to imagine what kind of city would look like. It makes it a little bit easier because there are many, many versions of here are all of the terrible things that could happen in the future.
MIRANDA LING 27:30
If I want to know about terrible things, I will watch the news. I don’t go to fiction for that being able to like choose who are these authors that you’re reading. There are a lot of folks who are are writing really interesting, really interesting things. And even folks like Octavia Butler, she wrote about some dark California in 2020 time. That resembles our present-day more than she had wanted ourselves being able to see the, okay, if this is a really difficult situation.
MIRANDA LING 28:00
And what are the lessons learned here? What were the ways that they survive? How do they build community when things are falling apart? And specifically, I’m talking about the parable of the talents series by Octavia Butler, where she’s talking about this future California that has this black protagonist who’s like, I am going to survive this. How am I going to do that?
MIRANDA LING 28:21
And seeing how she is able to make community, how she is able to create a way through a situation that feels impossible and recognizing in that series. There’s a lot of Goddess change. All that changes will change you. Recognizing that change is always going to happen. Change is inevitable.
MIRANDA LING 28:41
It’s how you work with and mold change, not how you just let things happen to you. It’s how you adjust because there will always be a new challenge. And that’s an opportunity to either learn or that’s an opportunity to shrink from the opportunity that’s just on the other side of that challenge.
RHEA WONG 29:03
I’m going to ask a little bit of a devil’s advocate question, which is when we use narrative to imagine Afrofuturism or a utopia, I mean, quick sidenote, this summer I had a retreat with my Asian boss, ladies and one of the workshops was with a graphic artist who had us imagine an Asian women’s Utopia, and we’re all grown women, and it just felt like revolutionary like wait for a second, there could be a world in which Asian women are thriving and taken care of and nurtured. What? What does that even mean?
RHEA WONG 29:39
I guess my question to you is like, I’m down with everything you’re saying, what’s the difference between imagining a future that we believed can be possible and being delusional? Because I think we could also say, oh, that’s great. Miranda, but that’s storytime and we’re living in this world right now where things are happening.
MIRANDA LING 29:58
Yeah! I think Recognizing that the present day we are living in was someone’s delusion 50 years. What we take for granted today are things like having the majority of white people to approve of MLK and today that was not the case. People did not think that was ever going to be the case recognizing that things we take for granted today as just given things like smartphones were seen as delusional ideas 100 years ago.
MIRANDA LING 30:30
I think it’s recognizing that we don’t exactly know what the future looks like, and being able to play in that space of possibility that there is more to this world than the eye and there’s more to the future than we can expect. And it’s not. It’s not about necessarily being grounded, and just like, what is possible tomorrow. But what is possible for so long term, but I think part of it is also like, what’s the timescale that you’re talking about?
MIRANDA LING 31:02
If it’s like, okay, I want everyone to be free, like, today at 5 pm. Like, alright, maybe that’s not gonna work. But in 100 years, like, what are the steps that we need to actually get there to have a future point? I think it’s also leaving the door open of like, this work isn’t going to be done with us, like, just like our ancestors had to be doing this their whole lives.
MIRANDA LING 31:30
Freedom is not an endpoint. It can be a process and something to work towards. It’s not about having this perfect future tomorrow. It’s about perfecting the future every day, as you’re building it, and imagining it yourself.
RHEA WONG 31:48
I love that. Okay, two more questions for me. And I’d love to open it up to the audience here. But how might an organization be intentional about building Afrofuturism into their practice, into their communications, and into the ways that they engage with donors? Like, tactically, what could that look like?
MIRANDA LING 32:08
Yeah! I think it could look like reading stories like N.K. Jemisin, the ones who stay in the fight. It could look like listening to authors, reading specifically, Octavia’s Brood, one of my favorite short story collections edited by Adrienne Maree Brown., and Walidah Imarisha, but having all of these stories about what kind of features are possible, written by activists and social justice, and change-makers and seeing the idea that social justice is an act of speculative fiction.
MIRANDA LING 32:43
We’re trying to create a better future. And we’re needing to imagine that first, being able to connect to that space of imagination, and that part of our role as people who are trying to make the world a more just and loving place is to make space for imagining what is possible and taking the time not just to talk about all the things we’re fighting against, and all the horrible, sexist, racist, classist, dangerous things out there.
MIRANDA LING 33:15
But like, what are the teachers were a black queer Phantom, or a trans person, or all of these different identities and communities where they can be safe? And where we can be valued? Like what? What would that feel like? And making space for that appreciation for a potential future? Makes it a lot easier and makes the work for me is the reminder of like, oh, yeah, this is why I’m doing the work is to be able to make these futures more possible. It’s not to get there tomorrow, but to get some of it.
RHEA WONG 33:51
Yeah! I love that. How might you recommend people be allies to Afrofuturists? And the question is, do you also have to be black to be an Afrofuturist?
MIRANDA LING 34:02
I think one way to be allies to the black community, again, is like listening to black people, like listening to our versions of what futures we’re looking for, and listening to the activists who are saying, hey, these systems are not only fucked up, but like, I will help you imagine a better future and recognizing that there are thinkers out there who are creating alternatives to this prison system that we have.
MIRANDA LING 34:31
We’re creating alternatives to all of these different systems that we have and recognizing that there are people creating the future right now. And even the Black Panther Party, a lot of what they did in there like a 10-point program, that was being able to imagine like, what do we want for black folks? I think a lot of that allyship is listening and saying like, okay, if we want to be a community that’s supporting Black folks, let’s listen to what they are telling us and what they have been telling us for centuries.
RHEA WONG 35:03
Okay! Last question here for me. Professor Ling, if you were to create a reading list for our listeners, what’s on that reading list? And you provided a couple already, but the top five reader list?
MIRANDA LING 35:18
Yes! I’ll just say like authors because if it’s the books, we would be here forever. But basically, everything by N.K. Jemisin, everything by Octavia Butler, everything by Neil Hopkins, and everything by Tomi Adeyemi. There are so many brilliant thinkers, and even with K.N. Johnson to talk about all of her books to read because they have such brilliant world-building with really diverse sets of characters and being able to have these authors who are you able to imagine futures with all different kinds of people, black folks and other folks as well. It’s s a really amazing syllabus. That is what I do in my free time as well.
RHEA WONG 36:07
What you’re saying is really resonating with me around this idea of being intentional about using your imagination, using creativity using narrative and storytelling in fundraising practices, in communications, and in the way that you run your nonprofit because I feel like nonprofit life is a frenzy that we get really stuck in the weeds. Here are now and like next week, we got to do this thing. But if we could actually take the time to think about the future that we’re creating together that could be really powerful.
MIRANDA LING 36:43
Absolutely!
RHEA WONG 36:44
All right, my friend, this has been fun. Is it alright if I have folks connected with you via LinkedIn?
MIRANDA LING 36:49
It’s great. I love to connect to folks who can talk about fundraising all day, as well as that for the future. You can definitely connect with me on LinkedIn. Also, if you’re interested in hearing about some of my futuristic stories, I have finally posted it on YouTube, the first episode of the Lavender Files which is my futuristic film noir, radio drama on YouTube, the lavender files by Rosewater Vigilante. That’s another way to connect, as well.
RHEA WONG 37:17
I love that. I should have put that in the show notes for folks who want to connect with you. PS, congratulations, because you and I talked about this back in the summer and you were dragging your feet. Good job! You did it.
MIRANDA LING 37:28
It happens. Yeah, I’ll call that imagine that world where I am actually putting my work out there and now it is out there.
RHEA WONG 37:36
It’s a kind of you just say help you imagine a world because most of the people I coach would say that I am just a massive pain in the ass until it happens. But hey, whatever. There are many ways to make a change, all that framing. All right, friend, this has been fun. I’ll make sure to include all your info in the show notes, including the YouTube video.
RHEA WONG 37:53
And please connect with Miranda. She is a brilliant thinker, a brilliant fundraiser, and stays in that really generative narrative storytelling space, which is why the pitch is probably such an effective fundraiser.
MIRANDA LING 38:08
Thank you. Thanks for having me here.
RHEA WONG 38:11
Have a good day, everyone.
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