Deconstructing the Complex

Deconstructing the Complex is a zine project by Intersectional Press focused on the experiences of marginalized individuals within the nonprofit industrial complex and/or targets of the white savior complex that oftentimes drives nonprofits. This ultimate product will be a digital and print zine series - a small, independently published booklet -  entitled "Deconstructing the Complex" that contains literary and visual art submitted by community members and curated by the volunteer team at Intersectional Press. Since the artists submitting work to the zine have already been targets of exploitation by nonprofits and society as a whole, this project aims to compensate them, albeit a nominal amount, for their labor. Stage one of Deconstructing the Complex will provide a platform for voices, experiences, and opinions that are often silenced within nonprofit work. While nonprofits provide many valuable, essential, and often lifesaving services, they are also not immune from replicating the harm inherent in the societies and systems that they work to supplement and serve. This zine will be shared widely within and outside of the nonprofit community in the hopes to inspire dialogue, reflection, and change. Stage two will be a compilation and distribution of suggestions and actionable items that nonprofits can use to self evaluate and make necessary changes to better serve their target audience and better support their volunteers and employees. Without such changes, these patterns will continue to cause harm in the very communities these organizations aim to help.

• April - May: Call for Submissions
• June: Curation, editing, and printing of issue 1
• July: Launch events
• July - December: Distribution of issue 1
• 2023: Stage 2 begins

As a nonprofit volunteer and professional for over a decade now, I have seen the ways many nonprofit organizations end up replicating the same oppressive systems their mission statements oftentimes say they are working to dismantle. Marginalized folks are given token or “storyteller” roles while white privileged folks maintain all the power and control in their board chairs. We are the community that is showing up ready to make the work happen. Nonprofits would be better able to support the community if decisions were made by those most affected and most experienced with the problems of said community. This project aims to connect the real stories, experiences, and advice of the marginalized to the nonprofits that claim they are here to serve us.