Mirabai Bush welcomes Iris Brilliant for a conversation about her work as a money coach and how she helps people align their wealth with social justice.
Iris Brilliant is a social justice money coach based in Berkeley, CA. Her life mission is to support people with wealth to move money to social justice and to transform how we relate to power, belonging, self-worth, and community along the way. Iris is a certified Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC), via the Co-Active Training Institute. She is also a donor advisor at Movement Voter Project, where she supports major donors to fund grassroots organizations in swing states. Read more about her work at www.irisbrilliant.com.
Aligning Wealth with Social Justice
Mirabai welcomes Iris to the Walking Each Other Home podcast. They cover Iris’s background, her journey with money, and her connection to Ram Dass. Iris talks about her work as a money coach and how she helps people align their wealth with social justice. Mirabai reads from Iris’s article on how to create safety beyond wealth accumulation.
“I wanted to offer that type of space for people with wealth to redistribute, to divest, to also rethink who we are as people and what roles we want to play in the world, and disentangle the confusing mix of messages around money and belonging and self-worth.” – Iris Brilliant
Ram Dass offers perspectives on work and money on Here and Now Ep. 177
Defining Enoughness (20:42)
Mirabai and Iris continue their discussion about wealth accumulation, and how definitions of enoughness vary greatly. Iris talks about how excess wealth can be stressful, and the importance of everyone having awareness around money. Mirabai and Iris explore the art of fundraising, and how we can incorporate community into our financial planning.
“There is no clear one-and-done answer about enoughness, but I think that it’s each of our responsibilities, especially for those of us in the US, and especially for those of us who have access to even a little bit more money than we might need, to really critically examine these questions for ourselves.” – Iris Brilliant
Please consider joining the donor community and making a gift to Liberated Capital Fund, which gives money to Indigenous and Black-led organizations in the United States in a reparations framework
Reparations and Resilience (39:55)
Mirabai and Iris explore the beautiful work happening in the world of reparations right now, encouraging everyone to get involved with the Liberated Capital Fund. They talk about how we lose our sense of resilience when we get too comfortable in our lives. Iris closes the show by encouraging everyone to normalize talking about money, wealth, and class inequities.
“I think there’s a lot of different ways to approach reparations, the first being to look back at our own story. Where did your money come from, and which communities was it extracted from?” – Iris Brilliant
