Fliplanthropy #4: Money in Movement with Lisl Schöpflin and Romy Krämer Fliplanthropy

Exploring ways to redistribute money into grassroots movements in an equitable, agile, participatory manner

There has been a legacy of private money shying away from contentious causes, European charitability laws make explicitly political initiatives harder to fund, and yet our political crises are by no means subsiding. How do wealth redistributors with a radical political vision resource grassroots communities & social movements that are all about bringing about major status quo shifts and deeper systemic change and thus ultimately abolishing the need for philanthropy itself?

In this episode we look at ‘flipping’ as a model shift. Not only we interrogate about how we can convince traditional funders to fund neglected causes and issues, but also to look at the model and structure of how this work is and can be done. We will look at participatory approaches to doing philanthropy, and question some of the models that are out there that perpetuate karma-washing and positions of privilege and power.

About our speakers

Romy Krämer researched and supported translocal anti-mining struggles, built and ran online and offline educational programs for social entrepreneurs globally, and did applied human factors research in the oil industry. She had never worked in philanthropy and her research had made her critical of NGOs that weren’t connected to grassroots movements – two major ingredients for setting up the Guerrilla Foundation together with Toni and Ivan. Being the executive director of the unorthodox foundation that is Guerrilla for the past 7 years has given her amassed experience on participatory approaches to this work that center grassroots activism resourcing.

Lisl Schöpflin has been a member of the Advisory Board of the Schöpflin Foundation since 2022. She is also Chairwoman and a member of the Board of the Panta Rhea Foundation, which was founded by her father Hans Schöpflin in the USA in 1998. She has been involved in philanthropic activities for many years, both privately and through grants from the Panta Rhea Foundation as well as in networks and organisations, and has lived and worked in Brazil, Denmark, India, Peru, Mexico and the United States. Lisl Schoepflin holds a BA in Anthropology and Theatre Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and an MA and PhD in Latin American History from the University of California.