Quakers Today

What happens when our spiritual leadings move us from merely surviving the present moment to actually practicing the world that comes next? In this special interim episode, host Peterson Toscano shares an excerpt from Climate Changed, a podcast produced by The BTS Center in Portland, Maine. Featured guests Norma Wong and Autumn Brown sit down for a deep, challenging conversation on spiritual leadership and endurance in a fractured world. In This Episode: From “I” to Kākou: Moving beyond hyper-individualism into the Native Hawaiian concept of kākou—a collective, experiential “us.” Practicing Beyond Collapse: Shifting from debating the theory of capitalism to building real, ground-level community systems right now. Echoes from Quakers Today: How their insights weave into past QT episodes on Jiwasa (Aymara communal we-ness), prefigurative classroom practice, and Quakers navigating capitalism. About the Featured Guests: Norma Wong is a Zen Master, Native Hawaiian teacher, and lifelong community organizer based in Hawaiʻi. Her work focuses on collective accompaniment, ancestral presence, and grounding communities through times of systemic transition. Autumn Brown is a writer, organizer, and co-host of How to Survive the End of the World. She is the author of the forthcoming book Temper. Links & Resources: The Full Conversation: Listen to the complete episode at climatechangedpodcast.org Full Show Notes & Reading Links: Visit QuakersToday.org Leave a Voicemail: Call or text 317-QUAKERS (317-782-5377) or email [email protected] Quakers Today is a project of Friends Publishing Corporation. Season 6 has been sponsored by Friends Fiduciary and the American Friends Service Committee. Produced by Peterson Toscano.

In our final episode of the season, we reflect on what we have learned and focus on concrete, practical next steps to align our money with our values. Moving beyond individual guilt and financial anxiety, we explore how practicing integrity and simplicity—combined with targeted collective action—can help us transform our economic systems and pursue shared liberation. Guests Rich Kent, Dov Baum, Lisa Graustein, and Lucy Duncan explore the practical realities of inflation, the mechanics of strategic corporate boycotts, and the necessity of moving from charity to structural reparations. Diana and Peterson also provide practical next steps for individuals, institutions, and collective movements. About the Guests Rich Kent A financial professional with Friends Fiduciary who helps Quaker meetings and organizations balance radical values with the practical necessity of managing institutional assets. Dov Baum Director of the Action Center for Corporate Accountability at the American Friends Service Committee, guiding faith communities in strategic divestment and boycott campaigns. Lisa Graustein A Quaker with inherited wealth advocating for impact investing and using money as a tool to rectify centuries of intentional inequity. Lucy Duncan A lifelong Quaker activist serving on the Reparations Committee at Greene Street Friends Meeting, challenging Friends to move from traditional charity to structural reparations. Key Topics Covered Integrity, Simplicity, and Radical Testimony Why leaning into integrity keeps us honest about our money, and how simplicity frees us from hyper-consumerism and builds community resilience. From Individual Guilt to Collective Action Why we must shift our focus from seeking personal moral purity to utilizing organized economic leverage against profit-maximizing corporations. Impact Investing and Reparative Economics How to move beyond boycotts and actively fund solutions while shifting our mindset from traditional charity to structural reparations.   Next Steps: Where Do We Go From Here? Practical action steps across three interconnected rings: personal stewardship audits, institutional queries on ethical screening, and joining collective campaigns.   Episode Timestamps 00:00 – Introduction and the Tension of Simplicity 04:36 – Shifting to Collective Action and BDS 09:16 – Impact Investing and Reparations 11:47 – Practical Next Steps 13:21 – Sponsor Messages, Credits, and Conclusion   Resources & Links Quakers Today Website: https://quakerstoday.org Friends Journal: https://friendsjournal.org Investigate: https://investigate.info Action Center for Corporate Accountability: https://afsc.org/acca Never Vanguard Campaign: https://eqat.org/never-vanguard   Connect With Us What becomes possible when we stop trying to carry the weight alone—and start moving our resources together in community? Leave a voicemail at 317-QUAKERS (317-782-5377) or email [email protected].   Sponsors & Credits Quakers Today is a project of Friends Publishing Corporation, hosted by Peterson Toscano and Diana Yañez. Season 6 is supported by Friends Fiduciary (https://friendsfiduciary.org) and the American Friends Service Committee (https://afsc.org). Financial Disclaimer All investments involve risk, and financial decisions should be made based on your individual circumstances, ideally in consultation with a qualified professional. The views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the host, Natural Investments, or its affiliates.

Co-hosts Peterson Toscano and Diana Yañez explore reparations beyond simple transactions. Rooted in abolition, repair is examined as a relational commitment and spiritual discipline aimed at ensuring historical and systemic harms are never repeated. Guests Anthony "Ant" Smith and Lucy Duncan discuss the historical lessons of Reconstruction and share how Philadelphia's Greene Street Friends Meeting dedicated $500,000 to reparations, centering Black leadership and unlocking over $11 million in local housing wealth. Anthony "Ant" Smith Organizer and educator with Reparation Works and Abolition Schools, bringing an abolitionist framework to racial repair and systemic change. Lucy Duncan Quaker activist, writer, member of Greene Street Friends Meeting, and Reparation Works focused on transgenerational healing. Key Topics Covered Abolition and Non-Repetition: Why reparations require systemic transformation so racialized violence cannot be repeated. Reconstruction Precedents: How General Sherman’s Field Order No. 15 proved the tools for Black autonomy were already understood. A Meeting’s Commitment: How Greene Street Friends Meeting allocated $500,000 over 10 years, housing the work in Worship and Ministry. Centering Black Leadership: Entrusting full financial discernment directly to the meeting’s Black members. Tangible Community Impact: Investing $25,000 in a legal clinic that preserved $11 million in Black generational housing wealth. Reparations as Spiritual Practice: Approaching long-term systemic repair with curiosity, patience, and love. Episode Timestamps 0:00 – Introduction: Beyond Financial Payouts 2:45 – Anthony Smith on Abolition & Repair 6:15 – Reconstruction & Sherman’s Field Order 15 8:50 – Greene Street Friends & Spiritual Resources 12:10 – Centering Black Discernment 15:30 – Free Legal Clinics & Housing Wealth 18:40 – Reparations as a Spiritual Discipline 20:55 – Listener Query & Archive Highlights 22:30 – Sponsor Messages & Disclaimers Resources & Links Reparation Works: https://www.reparation.works/ Article: Reparations and Transgenerational Healing by Lucy Duncan https://www.friendsjournal.org/reparations-and-transgenerational-healing/https://friendsjournal.org Archive Episode: Quakers and Reparations (January 2023) https://www.friendsjournal.org/podcast/episode-3-quakers-and-reparations/  Racial Wealth Gap Simulation https://bread.org Bonus Video Feature Ant & Lucy Community & Activism Feature: https://youtu.be/IwN8-z7usYI?si=qEzVIeeMzlxZQH1H  Connect With Us What does repair look like in your community? Leave a voicemail at 317-QUAKERS ( 317-782-5377) or email [email protected]. Quakers Today Website https://quakerstoday.org Friends Journal https://friendsjournal.org Quakers Today is a project of Friends Publishing Corporation, hosted by Peterson Toscano and Diana Yañez. Season 6 is supported by Friends Fiduciary and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).   Financial Disclaimer All investments involve risk, and financial decisions should be made based on your individual circumstances, ideally in consultation with a qualified professional. The views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the host, Natural Investments, or its affiliates. Diana Gisel Yañez is an Investment Advisor Representative of Natural Investments PBLLC. Natural Investments is an independent Registered Investment Advisor. Quakers Today and Friends Journal are not registered entities and are not affiliates or subsidiaries of Natural Investments.  

In this episode of Quakers Today, Peterson Toscano and Diana Yañez speak with Quaker Fran Brokaw about inherited wealth, family stories, grief, reparations, and the spiritual practice of releasing money. Fran describes inherited wealth as feeling like the dragon’s hoard in The Hobbit: treasure guarded so it can get bigger and bigger. Over time, she began asking deeper questions: What is this money? Where did it come from? What has it meant in my life? What does faithfulness ask of me now? Fran shares how reparations work helped her move beyond guilt and toward responsibility. She talks about giving without control, seeing money as a community asset, and allowing wealth to move through her as energy, love, repair, and relationship. In this episode inherited wealth and Quaker values guilt, responsibility, and repair giving without strings attached ethical investing and its limits wealth as grief, memory, safety, and power reparations and Land Back money as mutual blessing Featured guest Fran Brokaw, a Quaker reflecting on inherited wealth, reparations, and faithful money practice. Resources Money as a Mutual Blessing by Lola Georg Friends Journal https://www.friendsjournal.org/money-as-blessing/ Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust https://nefoclandtrust.org/ Lizzie Magie and The Landlord’s Game Philadelphia Yearly Meeting https://www.pym.org/quaker-history-clive-sansom-ursula-franklin-gordon-hirabayashi-and-lizzie-magie/ Quakers Playing Monopoly Philadelphia Yearly Meeting https://www.pym.org/quakers-playing-monopoly/ The secret history of Monopoly The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/11/secret-history-monopoly-capitalist-game-leftwing-origins Reflection questions What money stories did you inherit? Where does money create anxiety in you or in your meeting? What are you holding more tightly than you need to? What would it mean to give without control? Leave us a message What financial practices align with your values? Call 317-QUAKERS. That’s 317-782-5377. Outside the U.S., dial +1 317-782-5377. Email: [email protected] Sponsors Season 6 is sponsored by Friends Fiduciary and the American Friends Service Committee. Friends Fiduciary: https://friendsfiduciary.org/ AFSC: https://afsc.org/ This episode is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute investment, legal, or tax advice.

In this third episode of our season-long exploration of Quakers and Money, Peterson Toscano and Diana Yañez turn toward one of the largest and most difficult questions of the series: How do Friends live with integrity inside capitalism? Last month, we explored relational finance and asked whether taking responsibility for our money and institutional assets can lead to deeper integrity and more equitable power-sharing. This month, Peterson names the friction many Friends feel: the sense of being trapped in a massive economic system built on extraction, inequity, colonialism, and environmental harm. Through conversations with Lisa Graustein, Nathan Kleban, David Watt, and Traci Hjelt Sullivan, this episode examines the spiritual dissonance between Quaker values and capitalist structures. We hear about stolen land, inherited wealth, paternalism in charitable giving, the legacy of slavery in Quaker history, and the denial made possible by class and racial privilege. Rather than offering easy answers, Peterson and Diana ask what it means to stay on a journey with truth. If capitalism harms people and the planet, how might Friends move beyond individual purity or denial and toward mutual aid, community wealth-building, repair, and solidarity? In This Episode The Dissonance: Peterson reflects on the gap between Quaker faith and a global economy built on extraction and inequity. Capitalism and White Supremacy: Lisa Graustein names capitalism and white supremacy as forces that keep the here and now from becoming the realm of God. Stolen Land and Reparative Responsibility: Lisa shares the story of New England Yearly Meeting selling property after repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery and raises questions about what should happen to profits from land acquired through colonization. From Charity to Right Relationship: Nathan Kleban of Right Sharing of World Resources challenges paternalistic models of giving and asks who the economy is actually for. Quaker Wealth and Enslavement: David Watt, professor of Quaker studies at Haverford College, reminds us that some early Quaker wealth in Philadelphia was tied to Barbados, sugar plantations, and the labor of enslaved people. The Wealth of Not Having Debt: Traci Hjelt Sullivan expands the definition of ancestral wealth, naming the opportunities that come from beginning adult life without student debt. The Inner Capitalist: Diana reminds us that the Quaker belief in “that of God in everyone” also extends to capitalists, and to the parts of ourselves that continue to benefit from extractive systems. Our Guests Lisa Graustein Lisa Graustein is a Quaker educator, activist, and writer whose work often explores money, power, race, and reparative justice. In this episode, she reflects on inherited wealth, stewardship, and the responsibility to repair harm caused through the accumulation of resources. Nathan Kleban Nathan Kleban works with Right Sharing of World Resources, a Quaker organization that supports women-led economic projects in the Global South. Nathan brings a relational and community-centered lens to economics, asking how people get their needs met and how communities express their gifts outside extractive systems. David Watt David Watt is the Douglas and Dorothy Steere Professor of Quaker Studies at Haverford College. In this episode, he offers historical context about Quaker wealth, including the connections between early Philadelphia Friends, Barbados, sugar plantations, and slavery. Traci Hjelt Sullivan Traci Hjelt Sullivan is the executive director of Right Sharing of World Resources. She brings decades of nonprofit leadership and international experience to her work. In this episode, she reflects on truth, denial, race, class, debt, and the spiritual work of recognizing our own responsibility. Resources and Recommendations QuakerSpeak: “What If Wall Street Were Honest?” https://quakerspeak.com/video/what-if-wall-street-were-honest/ North Carolina Quaker Mark Hulbert has tracked investment advisors since the early 1980s. In this QuakerSpeak video, he talks about how his Quaker background and commitment to integrity led him to ask whether Wall Street advisors were telling the truth. Spent https://playspent.org/ Diana recommends Spent, a free browser-based survival game that places players inside the poverty trap. You begin with $1,000 and try to survive for 30 days while making impossible choices: pay rent, fix the car, buy medicine, or keep the lights on. It offers one way to better understand how expensive it can be to be poor in the current economic system. Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1575 Diana references Federici’s work while discussing the relationship between capitalism, labor control, gendered violence, and colonialism. The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374157357/thedawnofeverything/ Diana also points to this book while reflecting on European colonialism, the construction of human hierarchy, and the ideas that shaped the modern world. Organizations Mentioned Right Sharing of World Resources: https://rswr.org/ A Quaker organization that supports women’s self-help groups in the Global South through seed grants and relationship-based partnerships. Earth Quaker Action Team: https://eqat.org/ A grassroots Quaker organization that uses nonviolent direct action to challenge systems of economic and environmental injustice. New England Yearly Meeting: https://neym.org/ A regional body of the Religious Society of Friends is mentioned in Lisa Graustein’s story about land, reparative responsibility, and the Doctrine of Discovery. Haverford College / David Harrington Watt: https://www.haverford.edu/users/dhwatt David Watt teaches Quaker studies at Haverford College and appears in this episode to discuss Quaker history, wealth, slavery, and capitalism. Listener Voicemails Thank you to John Choe for sharing his reflections and concerns about Quakers, financial discernment, and the role of institutions like Friends Fiduciary. Thank you also to Richard Tindall for his faithful reminder to drink a glass of water first thing in the morning. As summer begins in the Northern Hemisphere, it is a timely invitation to stay hydrated and care for our bodies. Question for Listeners How do you navigate the tension between Quaker values and capitalism? Where do you feel dissonance between your financial life and your spiritual commitments? Share your thoughts: · Voicemail: Call 317-QUAKERS, 317-782-5377 · Email: [email protected] · Social Media: Respond to us on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok Sponsors Friends Fiduciary https://friendsfiduciary.org/ Friends Fiduciary unites Quaker values with expert investing. They serve Friends meetings, churches, schools, and organizations through ethical portfolios, shareholder advocacy, and a commitment to justice and sustainability. American Friends Service Committee https://afsc.org/ The American Friends Service Committee is a Quaker organization working with communities worldwide to challenge injustice, meet urgent community needs, and build conditions for lasting peace. AFSC and the Vanguard S.O.S. / Never Vanguard campaign AFSC announcement: https://afsc.org/newsroom/afsc-joins-vanguard-sos-campaign-fossil-fuel-divestment Never Vanguard pledge: https://eqat.org/never-vanguard/ AFSC has joined with Earth Quaker Action Team in the Vanguard S.O.S. campaign, asking Friends to boycott and divest from Vanguard until it stops funding fossil fuel projects and takes climate justice into account. Disclaimers Quakers Today is a project of Friends Publishing Corporation. This season is sponsored by Friends Fiduciary and the American Friends Service Committee. This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute investment, legal, or tax advice. Listening does not create an advisory relationship. Friends Fiduciary is a sponsor of this podcast. Sponsorship does not constitute an endorsement, and Quakers Today does not receive compensation based on listener investment decisions. Diana Gisel Yañez is an Investment Advisor Representative of Natural Investments PBLLC. Natural Investments is an independent Registered Investment Advisor. Quakers Today and Friends Journal are not a registered entity and are not an affiliate or subsidiary of Natural Investments. See the Natural Investments Disclosures and Disclaimers and Form CRS: https://naturalinvestments.com/disclosures-disclaimers/