UNC is a passionate community that fosters a unique culture of genuine investment in making the world a better place. But even in the parts of this community that are already invested in making change, we’d challenge people to understand genuine change comes from thinking systemically about the issues for which we’re advocating.
In this way, philanthropy and service without advocacy can actually be counter-intuitive for justice, as it can cloud our ability to understand how these issues originate. Service-based organizations like Campus Y committees and philanthropy organizations such as Carolina For The Kids should implement advocacy as an essential part of their program.
We do not mean to diminish the work these groups are doing. Issues such as education inequity, food access, global public health or funding for cancer patients are important causes to work toward. However, by placing the work with which they’re engaging within the context of broader forces, they can only enhance the quality of the type of work and create a culture of fostering more-informed, critical-thinking advocates.
We cannot evaluate the impact of these organizations so unidirectionally. The reality is that volunteers are also impacted, hopefully imbued with a deepened perspective of the world. By taking an advocacy approach, we transform these volunteers from being self-congratulatory individuals into advocates who have the knowledge to understand both the ways in which these issues begin to manifest and the amount of work to be done.
Philanthropy organizations need to work in the pursuit of self-eradication. What is our vision of an ideal world? In an ideal world, we don’t need to dance for 24 hours once a year to raise money for hospitals. In an ideal world, we don’t need to send tutors to low-income communities. In an ideal world, these problems do not exist, and thus, neither do the organizations addressing them.
Some would say we don’t need to politicize all service or philanthropy organizations. But we must be reminded that being apolitical is also inherently a political choice, just as choosing to not act is an action.
We are not calling on people to abandon direct work in lieu of advocacy. Philanthropic work is essential to alleviating suffering, and advocacy without direct work can be incomplete as well.
But if people are genuinely invested in accelerating our path to a brighter future, they need to integrate advocacy as a critical part of their programming.
