Solidarity funds/mutual aid fundraising is vital. It can mean survival pending revolution/abolition.

AND it is true that a means of redistribution where the people with money still voluntarily elect where to donate, and who/what to fund, is not a democratic distributive system.

It is still people with money who are deciding what is necessary, what is worth donating to, and what's excessive or unnecessary for poor people.

Sometimes too much emphasis on transparency and accountability turns fundraising into a good-cause shopping experience for rich and comfortable+ people. Turning over resources should mean turning over *control* of resources.

Unless there is real suspicion of dishonesty--which is widespread and a real problem--people should drop cash and go. Especially if an org or person has established trust within their community and movements more broadly... which can be fairly accurately determined on here.

People talk a lot about non-profits guiding work with their big grant money... but what about everyday petty bourgeois liberals guiding the work through their own *feelings* about where money should go? And how that codes how 'we' ask for $, and what we think we can ask for?

Not to diminish the historical FORCE that is the NPIC--we know about it! But it's to say that this is a problem with the relationship of movements/orgs to money in general. The NPIC is the biggest source of money so its the biggest influence, but its not the only.

The shift toward pools seems to be a good way to combat this problem. If someone/some group has clear principles, and is known and trusted, then there should be no reason they cant ask for money now and tell you what they did with it later (or sometimes, not tell you)

At some point the whole asking-for-money thing will have to give way to more direct means of accruing resources. But that's not a conversation for this place.