Going Deeper is Our Final Frontier

You've tried everything else; now is the time

Mar 28, 2025

Dear Ones,

I am absolutely thrilled again this week, to welcome dozens more of you into this community of philanthropists.

WELCOME, new folks!

Today, both because we have so many new people here… and because I want to remind y’all what our ultimate purpose here together is, I’m talking about going deeper. I’m talking about the internal journey we need to take.

Don’t fear.

I know that may sound intimidating.

But it need not be.

We have each other.

And you have me here as your guide.

Let’s go deeper. Together.

Let’s transform this world… by transforming ourselves.

With Love,

Cecelia 💗

PS:

Another opportunity to join the Wisdom Circle for Philanthropy is coming up! May is one of three on-boarding opportunities throughout the year. If you’d like to join us in May, fill out your application by NEXT Friday, April 4th.

Have you been looking for community and support, in your work? Would you like help and inspiration in transforming your fundraising… into philanthropy (or love of humanity)? Community, support, and inspiration are here for you. Join us!

PPS:

If you’re here as a free subscriber, consider becoming a Supporting Subscriber — especially if you support the work of this project and want to see it grow and expand.

The podcast will be launching soon, which will seriously increase the time and energy necessary to make this all happen.

Every one of you who financially supports For the Love of Humanity with a Supporting Subscription makes all of the love and humanity spread here SO much more possible.

THANK YOU!

If a Supporting Subscription isn’t financially possible for you right now, it’s also really meaningful and helpful for you to “heart” this article on Substack… to comment, share your thoughts, and actively help build community here… and to share this with others who you think would like it/benefit from it.

This is a community, and community takes all of us.

Thanks for being here — and for contributing!

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This is not the kind of missive that you scan through while you’re doing three other things. These Loveletters are meant to be something you take in in a place where you feel relatively grounded and able to focus.

Remember: warm drinks. ☕️

Calm. Quiet. Groundedness.

This is why you’ll see me encourage you to take a series of deep breaths at the beginning of every Loveletter. And I genuinely hope you do!

The attention economy is a real thing in our present world — I know this. I’m not naive. But I’m also not going to play the game in the way all of the TikTok videos… and YouTube channels… and Instagram reels… and other algorithms do.

I don’t want to grab your attention just to grab it and dominate it. In fact, I don’t even want to dominate your attention at all — apart from the moments I can inspire you to grow and heal and do and be different in your life.

And then I want you to spend most of your attention and energy not attached to a screen, but living your life. Fully. Meaningfully. Deeply. Joyfully.

This project doesn’t exist because I want to be famous or make millions. In fact, I am very serious — and very sincere — about the fact that none of this is about me.

I genuinely have no other motivations with For the Love of Humanity than these:

#1: Helping usher in a new era of humanity on this planet, one that is softer… kinder… quieter… more collaborative… more inter-connected… more compassionate… more peaceful… more just… more life-affirming… and in general, more loving.

#2: Earning enough of this thing we humans have invented and called money, so that I and my loved ones can remain fed, sheltered, and have our needs met… and so I can hopefully widen my circle of care as far as possible into all of the communities of which I’m a part. I want to contribute meaningfully to as many peoples’ well-being as possible, and the way we’ve got things set up, money is one of the primary ways to do that. So this project is one of the ways I’m gathering funds for those purposes, via earning cash from Supporting Subscriptions.

That’s it, really.

One, two. And one is first for a reason. If we could achieve one as a society, we all would not even need to worry about two so much.

One is the ultimate goal… and two is survival until we get there.

I think two is pretty straight-forward, yes?

So let me delve a little deeper into the first one for you….

Philanthropy Has Gone Sideways

Over the decades, we’ve taken our essential human impulses to help our communities… and formed them into organizations… and careers… and skill sets… and ways to feed our loved ones. We’ve professionalized philanthropy.

But it wasn’t always that way.

The roots of the word philanthropy are Greek: philos, meaning love (think Philadelphia, the “City of Brotherly Love”), and anthropos, meaning humanity (think anthropology, or the scientific study of humanity).

As I like to say, philanthropy is one of the most human things a human can do.

Philanthropy didn’t used to be a career. Philanthropy used to just be a way of life for everyone living together in community — as essential as breathing.

Let me be clear, here: I’m not saying professionalizing philanthropy is a bad thing, on its own. People being able to support themselves and their loved ones and communities by dedicating their daily work to bettering their communities?

We love to see it!

What I am saying is that professionalizing philanthropy has led to a widening gap between our deepest, most essential needs as human beings… and the ways we attempt to meet them.

In other words, we’re attempting to meet our deepest human needs… in a way that is not only not meeting the needs… but that is actively harming many of us.

Just one example of this is the idea of “charity” that we’ve adopted.

We’ve completely lost any real sense of solidarity among us — and that creates a major wound in our hearts and beings.

So many of us have uncritically accepted from our ancestors the idea that there is an “us” and a “them.” And that’s a lie.

When you look at what it is to be human on this blue boat home of ours, as we float amidst the Milky Way galaxy together, there is really no way to accurately understand relating to all of our fellow humans as anything but a part of “us.”

There is no “us” and “them” here.

There is only “us.”

There is no “us” and “them” here.

There is only “us.”

Just a couple weeks ago, I wrote about how I’ve seen this insistence on the “ideal” of rugged individualism in America as an addiction.

Like any addiction, it seemed like it was helping us and a good thing at some point… but we are long past the time that that was true.

Now, as is so common with addiction, things are getting worse and worse, unraveling more and more by the day. The harms are multiplying. And I now see us heading to our collective rock bottom.

Things are rough out there.

People are dying. People are being tortured, demeaned, violated. People are being violently ripped from their loved ones. People are being told they have no right to live. People are losing access to food… and shelter… and healthcare.

On the daily.

We and our fellow humans are suffering right now.

And I just keep asking: when will it be enough?

When will we finally say enough?

When will we finally decide, as the collective of humans that we are, to give up the drink (of individualism) soon... and enter into recovery?

And I just keep asking: when will it be enough? When will we finally say enough? When will we finally decide, as the collective of humans that we are, to give up the drink (of individualism) soon... and enter into recovery?

This is just one example of the many ways we’re collectively sick right now — even within this space we occupy that’s supposed to be about making things better.

We’ve got some collective healing to do…

… and my sense is that it’s probably going to start with those of us working within the field of professionalized philanthropy… and ripple out from here… to eventually affect all of humanity.

And if we want that to happen?

We’ve got to start within.

The Path to Healing Leads Deeper

I mentioned wanting a world that is softer… kinder… quieter… more collaborative… more inter-connected… more compassionate… more peaceful… more just… more life-affirming… and in general, more loving.

What do you say?

Is this something you desire too?

My general assumption is that most folks working in philanthropy envision a world with more of those qualities.

But here’s the problem.

We don’t usually go about our work in those ways.

Our workplaces and teams are fare more likely to reflect the world we see around us than they are to embody those ideals.

Philanthropy has yielded to the dominant culture around us, allowing itself to be imprinted by the very same ills we say we’re working to heal.

We live in a world that is hard…

…mean…

…loud…

…isolating…

…lonely…

…callous…

…violent…

…unjust…

…death-dealing…

…and laden with fear in all its forms.

Too often, professionalized philanthropy is all these things too.

And this is what I genuinely wonder: how is it that we think we are going to heal these ills… if we cannot, or will not, work on embodying their antidotes in the very ways we want to see them spread as our shared reality?

Spoiler Alert:

We can’t.

That’s not possible.

If we keep creating — and re-creating — these realities, even as we say we are trying to end them, we are not only hypocritical, we are impractical.

You don’t end something by perpetuating it.

You perpetuate it by perpetuating it.

Something grows… and spreads… and continues… and multiples… the more that individual humans choose to embody it.

The opposite is true, too.

So.

How do we create the world we say we want?

We go deeper. We explore the nooks and crannies of our beings. We find all the places where we’re harboring fear, and/or violence, and/or callousness, and/or meanness, and/or isolation, etc.

We bring love to those places.

And we allow love to heal us.

In so doing, bit by bit, we become love.

And as more and more of us do so, love becomes more and more of our shared reality. More of us get to live love… breathe love… give love… receive love.

Love becomes the way.

How the Heck Do I Know Any of This?!

Especially if you’re new here, you may be wondering:

what is she talking about?!

This isn’t philanthropy!

Philanthropy is logic models. And proposals. And big checks. And Constituent Relationship Management software systems. And data analysis. And committees. And RFP announcements. And efficient management. And HR. And marketing. And PR. And board governance. And profit and loss. And recruitment and retention. And budgeting. And technology stack management. And and and…

… exactly.

Exactly.

Do you see how all the things we’re running around doing every day like busy little bees is actually not very related to true philanthropy?

I was ordained a mystical priest before I became a professional fundraiser.

And I prioritized my spiritual development long before I started learning about “development” as a means to raise funds for mission-based work.

This focus on spiritual development and growth is absolutely core to who I am. And it is core to who I’ve always been as a fundraiser.

Yet, I never explicitly talked about that in my work — and I certainly never wrote about it publicly — before For the Love of Humanity.

To be clear, it wasn’t a secret.

Many who know me knew this about me already — though most people who knew me professionally did not.

Yet.

I often heard some version of this feedback from people, often in professional settings: “You have such good energy.” Or “There’s just something about you. Something special.” Or “I just really like to be around you. I always gain so much just by being with you.”

When I’ve heard things like this, I’ve smiled, because I’ve known exactly why they were experiencing what they were experiencing. But they didn’t have all the information to know exactly why. And I didn’t offer it. Because it seemed like that was something to keep apart from my professional life.

No more.

And it took a life-threatening disease to bring me here….

From September 2022 through Spring of 2024, I had what I’ve jokingly called an “unplanned sabbatical,” as I walked the long and winding, difficult journey of a breast cancer diagnosis and its necessary course of treatments (multiple surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and more).

There’s nothing like a disease that brings you face-to-face with your mortality to make you re-evaluate your life, yes?

And re-evaluate I did.

One of the things I reflected a lot on, during that long-needed time away from a professional life that had often been consuming, overwhelming, and difficult, is that I’d been going about my work to grow a better philanthropy all wrong.

I’d been “struggling” against, “fighting” to change, trying to dismantle a well-established system that, like all systems, is built to function a certain way and generally operates like machinery, with the occasional tune-up to forestall a blatant break-down. But like most machines, this system is built to keep on working, in the manner in which it was created.

Systems are huge.

Systems are, by definition, more-than-human.

They are the ways in which humans endeavor to collaborate with each other, to create a means to accomplish things bigger than just one or two could alone.

Systems have SO much potential to be powerful forces for good.

Yet, systems so often become powerful forces for maintaining a status quo that is actively harmful to many of the human beings within them.

The professionalized field of philanthropy (including all work in fundraising and nonprofits) is an example of this happening.

At scale, this field is now largely de-humanizing, rather than humanizing.

This may come as a shock to some, given the public image of this field as all about doing good and helping people.

Here's why this has become true: the more “philanthropy” has yielded to the dominant culture we live in (one yoked to the persistent realities of coloniality, capitalism, patriarchy, androcentrism, the supremacy of “whiteness” and “white” ways of being, heteronormativity, lack of inclusion for those with disabilities, etc.), the less good it has done — and the more harm it has done.

Quite a lot of harm, I'm pained to say.

What have we been missing?

Our perspective has been off.

We keep looking at the problem as one being “out there.” The system, as we talk about it, is something that we are pointing to.

We may talk about “fighting against” it.

We may talk about “dismantling” it.

We may shake our heads at its problems.

But the system is not out there.

The system is in here.

We need to take our pointer fingers, the ones we’ve been using to point to a system “out there,” and turn them towards ourselves, landing right on our own solar plexus.

The system is in here.

And “in here” is where we need to work on changing it.

I’ve realized that integrating inner development, growth, and healing into the work of philanthropy is essential to solving all of the problems we’ve been trying to solve within the field.

I started my adulthood living within two monasteries, while studying for and earning my Bachelor’s degree in English. After that experience, I moved into one intentional community, followed by another… and soon, I had moved into what was essentially an ashram, where I dedicated my days to study and growth within the inner mystical spiritual path. I have often joked that I have “monastic tendencies,” and those tendencies continue to this day.

I was eventually ordained as a mystical priest.

I have regularly meditated for years.

I’ve traveled the inner spiritual path, guided by my spiritual teachers… and I’ve had the experience of gradually letting love into more and more of my being.

I’ve traveled this journey.

And I want to bring you along too.

The Way Forward

Think about it.

Each and every moment that we are living within a system, actively functioning as a part of it, we are co-creating that system.

We may feel powerless within that system — and as an individual, we may be, to a degree. But when we widen our view and see the collective of humans that is a part of that system, we can see that the system would not exist at all without the people within it. And thus, each of the individuals is an essential part of a whole that functions as one, much like our own bodies and all of their cells.

Actions of individual cells can take down an entire body…

…like the cancer I experienced.

At the same time, the health of individual cells, mutually affecting and working in concert with each other, is what creates a reality of robust health for the whole body.

time lapse photography of water reaction — Photo by Jackson Hendry on Unsplash

Here’s another metaphor to illustrate this truth:

Think of a rock being thrown into a pond.

Circles ripple out from where it went in.

This is exactly how change happens among humans, since we all share a common field of energy, like a pond — and our energy is directly affected by others’ energy.

Here’s how it works:

We transform ourselves.

The people around us start to be affected by us and transform too.

Then the people around them start to transform.

And so on…

…as the concentric circles reverberate out, getting bigger and bigger.

You can see it, yeah?

So OK.

Great.

Concentric circles of transformation.

So what?

How does that change anything… really?

Here’s an abiding truth that has probably been spoken many times. One of the people it’s been associated with is Albert Einstein — who is attributed with saying, essentially, that no problem can be solved by the same consciousness that created it. Similarly, I think of Audre Lorde’s teaching that the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.

Our consciousness — who we are — is what really matters.

Remember.

We are human beings.

Not human doings.

Or human goings.

Our consciousness is what we need to focus on transforming.

If we can do that, we will have a whole new way to see and understand our problems… and to work together on changing them. If we can transform our consciousness, then — and only then — we will be able to transform our shared reality.

If we can transform our consciousness, then — and only then — we will be able to transform our shared reality.

We are human beings.

Being involves our essence.

Being involves who we are at the most core level.

Even more, our being carries inherent value. There is nothing it needs to do, nowhere it needs to go, to earn that value.

Is this the way most of us live?

I’d say no.

Wouldn’t you?

The mystical spiritual path is a process of going deeper and deeper into our inner being… until we get to our core, which is — spoiler alert — pure love.

Can you believe it?

I can.

Because I’ve been there.

And I want you to come too.

Because can you even imagine?

Can you even imagine how different this world would be, how different all of its systems would be, if they were being created by human beings who were fully conscious of their true selves? People who were fully attuned to love?

Wow.

What a revelation.

What a revolution.

Are you ready?

Are you ready for an entirely different philanthropy… which will create an entirely different world than what we have today?

Something more whole?

Something more human?

Something more loving?

We can find a better way forward.

Together.

Are you in?

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