WOY 2024 Episode-6: Geeta Pradhan: Philathropy, Charity, Human Dignity and Her Journey From Kashmir

philanthropy um uh can actually often be about power you know that it's someone who has to be giving to someone who doesn't have philanthropic power is often used for good but it also comes with um with the dose of um uh of treating people unequally human dignity is probably the most important you know if someone's dignity is crushed you actually you crush a lot more I I would love to see a world where um Humanity human dignity uh the sense of selfworth kindness compassion is actually lifted up to another we have uh tended to think about um philanthropic giving much more as charitable giving term charity inherently has a power uh Dynamic within that you know that I am doing something for you I am enabling you I am empowering you I am giving to you I'm Gita Pradhan the president of the kambridge Community Foundation it is a geographically focused philanthropic organization that provides grants to nonprofits acts as a Civic leader and builds philanthropic Partnerships to help people realize their philanthropic dreams in my role as the CEO of the organization I get get involved in all kinds of things from um partnering with the public sector city government the mayor's office the city councellors uh helping Define policy uh meeting with our local nonprofits that do amazing work for the well-being of the community to meeting with donors and helping them think about how they might realize what they want to accomplish in their Community G Welcome to our uh uh studio and thank you so much for your time and my pleasure and we are really looking forward to honor you on our 21st annual Mo of the Year OFA thank you I'm honored excellent sure so uh we'll come back to your work with uh city of Boston and uh Boston Foundation a little bit later and your journey from kmet to here okay but let's first start with a Cambridge uh Community Foundation uh many of our viewers and readers may not know what Cambridge Community Foundation is so what is uh Cambridge Community Foundation and what is your role there uh the Cambridge Community Foundation is a philanthropic organization um it was established in 1916 so it's amongst one of the oldest foundations that was years old7 108 years old now um and it focuses uh like most Community foundations on a specific geography and in our case it is the geography of cambrid principally but because of how expensive um and unaffordable Cambridge has become we've actually extended our reach to serve people who live in Cambridge and those who work play pray or uh create in Cambridge so it's a and we basically do our work through three things we are a grant maker um uh we give out grants to nonprofits to do the work uh to uplift community and only nonprofits based in Cambridge or nearby uh it's typically nonprofits that are serving mostly Cambridge but we do a lot in Somerville and um some in Medford as well because they're neighboring towns yeah the neighboring towns and then you know sort of it depends like if we are working with the Arts Community we will support artists who create their work in Cambridge but cannot afford to live in Cambridge uh we also are a Civic leader we do independent research on the City and the impacts of the economy on the city um as well as develop philanthropic Partnerships with donors and other foundations to carry out um social change work in the community yeah and uh Your Role so what you oversee everything what happens there I I oversee everything and I have to tell you that in any given day I would be talking to um our Investment Partners about the investments in the uh of our assets um uh I could be talking to donors about what a particular donor might want to do and what their goals and dreams are for their philanthropic work I might be talking to U large nonprofits that's trying to affect education or Workforce or is doing Social Services I might even be talking to um an an individual artist who's struggling to do his or her work in Cambridge or even a resident I might even be talking to a government official so it really varies so in in some ways it's really exciting because I never know what a day will bring to me that's very exciting job I must say yes so gaita most of our viewers and readers everybody is familiar with the city of Cambridge because the might and Harward and the biotech Center yeah uh but many of us are not aware about economic growing economic disparity in Cambridge yeah so if you can just tell us little bit about you know how how much disparity is there and who can even afford to live in Cambridge that's a that's actually a very interesting question in some sense it's actually Central to the work that I do um you know Cambridge is a it's sort of a just position of um disparities you know you have extreme wealth and surprisingly pretty solid poverty in Cambridge um you know uh not everybody uh manages to achieve their goals in that City on average uh a a household in Cambridge a low-income household in Cambridge makes an average income of uh in the bottom 20% um makes an average income of about you know between 14 to 15,000 M compared to the top quintile that the top 20% where it is and the average income is about 350,000 and if you know Cambridge you have people who earn in the millions in Cambridge so you have that kind of cont clarify so 3 50,000 is top 20% average income or 350,000 for the entire Cambridge no no for the top 20% top 20% okay and and that's really you know um you know it's going from say maybe 150,000 up sure and the up has no limit okay so if so now so if you go to top 5% in Cambridge what will be roughly your estimate their income um I would say actually I don't know I don't think I have that data the top of my head but just from your experience I would say that the top 5% in Cambridge would be I would say well over 5 million 5 million and what is the population of Cambridge Cambridge is about 120,000 people 120,000 so it's not that big a it's not that big a city um so you know it's a fairly small City but a very interesting City in the sense that it is a global Powerhouse because uh it is the center of the Innovation economy squ just one so 150,000 is a resident population but hundreds of thousands people come every day to work and yeah I mean I think easily about 50 to 60,000 people come into the city every day to work um so yeah you know it you can feel that okay yeah so now I want to go back backward so now let's come so uh you have been there for how many years now uh for about 8 and a half years for 8 and a half years and before that uh off the camera you were saying that you work for the Boston Foundation yes for almost 10 years maybe for about 14 years at the Boston Foundation no Boston Foundation is uh I mean it's a institution itself yeah and what you did there at Boston Foundation I was the vice president uh I was the associate vice president for programs and Community impact so I worked on all the community impact issues that the Boston Foundation did I oversaw their Grant making and um worked on many community Community Development uh I actually oversaw the five core areas at that point that the Boston Foundation had which was um Education Health the Arts jobs and housing so what what what are the one or two message you got away with from Boston Foundation that which really impacted you you know I think one of the key issues that I saw in Boston which is actually What attracted me to Cambridge as well was the inequity ities in community you know uh particularly racial inequities and you know uh I I I grew up with a certain set of values you know values about Humanity values about human dignity and it it it just something that bothered me a lot to see that there were people who were struggling who um um had very limited options and uh you know it's not that there is any Community or any people that are in inherently uh you know um I would say not equal or unequal but it is the opportunity and it is the um um you know the barriers to their growth that actually come in the way of them getting ahead so when I looked at data in in Boston and I see the similar data in Cambridge related to both lowincome and racial ethnic group populations and immigrant groups you see that you know kids are not doing well so it it actually even goes as far back as prenatal Health to Early Childhood to third grade reading to fifth grade eighth grade math and English scores and science scores to uh college and lifetime so uh you know I saw a lot of that because the focus of my work in Boston was on Roxy doister and matapan where almost 70% of so this is the one when you were working with the city or working when I was working for the Boston foundation for the Boston Foundation okay yeah so yeah I just wanted to make clarify well in city of Boston I worked we'll come back to that let's finish the yeah sure so so you're working in that part of the and so that's where there was a concentration of poverty of social inequities um and I had actually done i' had been part of a very interesting research initiative that the Boston Foundation had and they continue to do their research work called the Boston indicators project project which looked at data across all aspects of life so you know I I had the uh opportunity and the ability to actually see the data on um inequities in um in the economy in Civic life and social life and education and health and housing and safety technology all of those and that is actually one of the the uh great things that actually prepared me to take on looking after an entire city and it's wellbeing which is what my job at Cambridge Community Foundation now is that's fantastic and I think bason Foundation definitely gave you a lot of insight it gave me a lot of insights it it gave me a lot of insights in a lot of different ways different okay uh you know it also taught me what um uh uh you know in something that I I feel about philanthropy and I always like to talk about this um that Phil philanthropy um uh can actually often be about power you know that it's someone who has to be giving to someone who doesn't have MH um and um I think you were talking something very interesting go ahead yeah so you know so this issue of power um in philanthropy is typically power that is um should be used for good and power is often and that philanthropic power is often used for good but it also comes with um with the dose of um uh of treating people unequally you know so those who have resources have equal access to resources have better access to resources those who don't have you know they um they're inherently in a weaker space and it's something that fundamentally actually really bothers me that why is it that we give money the power and not the issue of kindness compassion you know the moral values of life why don't we equate that because in my work in the community I saw some you know I saw the the The Compassion the caring um the kindness you know a lot of wonderful human values um amongst the poorest of the poor their ability to give to someone else who is as needy as them you know because they understand what it is and what it means they they get it and this aspect of and I would really love to actually say to your viewers and um uh and um and anyone you know who's willing to listen that um you know human dignity is probably the most important absolutely aspect you know if you um you know if someone's dignity is crushed actually you crush a lot more you know you crush Humanity I feel you know you um and um we have to be very very mindful of making sure that we are not looking at at wealth as the um you know the the aspect of power um which I think worldwide we have created this kind of a dynamic where wealth trumps everything else you know um I I would love to see a world where um Humanity human dignity uh the sense of selfworth kindness compassion is actually lifted up to another so when we talk about giving for good cause the one topic always comes is to give you really don't have to have money you know you should keep giving you know till it hurts you so twise it sounds very good and when it comes from the people like this then it is not suing power it is suing compassion I really want to help help it out but again at the same time when you know the the class of the group you are talking about okay I'm going to give you but that is also a display of power yes so how do you reconcile these two things together I you don't see any no I I do see a conflict because you know I think the conflict really comes from the term charity versus change okay so um I think we have uh tended to think about um philanthropic giving much more as charitable giving you know even the term it's the term you know even IRS uses the ter term charitable giving uh and that term charity inherently has a power uh Dynamic within that you know that I am doing something for you I am enabling you I am empowering you I am giving to you change is a different concept you know it is it is much more I an issue of U you know that's more equal that's more Equitable you know where you may be lifting up something because um uh uh you know I'm trying to find the right word for it you know um Equity to me is different from it's like giving um lifting someone up because there is a barrier um and I I don't even like to use the word lifting someone up because that in itself has is a is a laden word m because what it's saying is you are doing something you know there's a very interesting uh diagram that I once saw um of um Equity versus equality equality is like when everyone has the same amount no matter what their size right you know um it could be an elephant it could be a mouse you give everyone the same amount because you're trying to be equal Equity is you see there are three kids that are trying to watch a game over a fence and they're of different heights so you put little boxes for them to adjust them so that they come up to the same level and can see beyond and the true Equity is when you remove the fence when you remove the barriers when you know you see yourself I mean many of us who actually do well in life um we do well in life because we got some opportunity you know everyone because I maybe I was born into a household that was that had wealth um it doesn't mean that inherently I was better than the child who was born in a household that had poverty sure it's just that that child was born in a certain context and I was born in a certain context and so I like to remind myself constantly you know that I'm fortunate MH you know I'm fortunate that I had the opportunity it is now my responsibility to make sure that someone else has that you know earlier when you talked about you know uplifting or you know the you know also in the context of Power Play So for a minute even if you take that the financial part or the wealth part out of the equation yeah just purely on human to human uh interaction you see that when somebody puts you down just psychologically how terrible it is that's exactly what I was saying when I was was talking about the issue of dignity because when you crush someone's dignity you actually that's the worst thing that the wor thing you can do yeah so you know treating people with dignity is actually one of those my core values So within the Cambridge Community Foundation we actually have four core values that we live by the leading value is the right to dignity which means that we will treat and my organization will treat and everyone the same way whether it is a billionaire who comes into the door or a homeless person who comes into the door we will treat everyone the same way um the second value is equity and Justice you you know um to you know to look at this issue of removing barriers to opportunity and and the fairness of how you know you conduct yourself the third one is collaboration because none of us can do it on our own we need others you know we are one one piece of the puzzle and there are many others uh you know uh in our case the nonprofits the donors the public sector you know the volunteers it's all of those people who are contributing and finally the fourth value that we live by is creativity and imag ination we have to start thinking differently about how we solve The World's problems and um you know work in in some ways the work that we have taken up at the foundation now is that we are saying that we've always been trying to solve problems particularly of poverty and inequity uh of the um wealth Gap or the uh you know um uh the economic inequities through top down research strategies where people come in from the top or government comes in and says you need to do this that and the other you need to get a job you need to get an education you need to do this and there then we will support you and you will get out of poverty but the more recent thinking about this is that the people who are who uh whose lives you're trying to change they know best like and and it's interesting because lately we've done some very interesting work on guaranteed basic income which is unconditional money going to families that says you decide how you're going to use that money and um uh what we finding is that the solutions to the problems are actually rest with the people who are dealing with those problems you just have to figure out how to bring them up and um you know there's uh we've been doing this work on guaranteed basic income lately you know where um we started with a philanthropic experiment of about 13 30 single parent households who got $500 a month to um for 18 months to try to you know get them moving out of poverty this was in this is in Cambridge we we we just that effort just finished in February of 2023 but when covid happened you know um one very interesting aspect of covid was that it hit everyone and everyone became suddenly very vulnerable and um uh you know I I know that as the foundation we were uh sending out money to families because we raised we raised about $5 million to give out to people in the community and it was the at the time that we actually went far beyond Cambridge because we realized that people who live in people who work in Cambridge can't afford to live there they live elsewhere but they contribute to the city and they needed support but um as we were doing that work um you know um we we learned a lot uh about this aspect of both the compassion that people have but also the um uh you know uh the fact that everyone has different needs and so you need to instead of trying to Define for everyone this is how you need to live your life you give people the opportunity and so it's more trust based philanthropy where you're saying we're trusting you to make a decision because in one family someone uh may be struggling because they have a disable child or or an elderly parent um uh it may be a single parent who doesn't have access to a car to go to the job that they want so everyone has different situations you know and so you need to meet people where they are so that's actually work that we've been doing and as covid happened we were able to use the philanthropic experiment to convince Cambridge City government to do an expansion of that program for 2,000 families and those 2,000 families actually range from the very poor to those who are earning at 50% of what it cost to live in Cambridge you know the the bottom 40% of of households and um you know we're still learning from that experiment to figure out what happens when you let people give them the support M uh give them what they need and they decide how they're going to get themselves out of that situation so now uh before we go to kmir yeah um I wanted to ask you the tell us about the size of your organization the you know like how much money roughly you average you give out and the Staffing ETA so it's actually um we are not a very large organization in the sense but we call ourselves a mighty organization uh we are our assets are at about $60 million we give out about um you know between 4 to 5 million a year M uh and that giving um comes from the foundations the income from our endowment uh as well as money that we raise from our donor community and other foundations who we partner with um you know we've taken on some of the city's biggest challenges like taking on the issue of income inequality it's a big challenge it's not something that a foundation of our size can actually solve and it's growing very rapidly and yeah yeah but the the uh you know which is why one of our values of collaboration comes in you know we see the role of and I actually see not just our role as the Cambridge Community Foundation but the role of philanthropy should actually be to instigate change you know and to inspire change uh to be the innovators of change so that we can then leverage other resources to create the change that needs to happen so the example that I was giving of the 130 families who were getting guaranteed basic income lever that was a philanthropic experiment because we did that we were able to convince city government to actually put 20 million into an effort for 2,000 families again they're getting $500 a month for 18 months we are actually going to do an evaluation of that to understand what happened to these families how did they how did they use that support to get ahead in Life or maintain their situation in life how did it did it happen for different social ethnic groups how did it happen for different family types because everyone's situation is different and we need to figure out some of these solutions by really understanding from the ground up how best to support those who need the support that okay now let's come so we talked about uh Cambridge Community Foundation Boston Foundation you also worked for in for the city of Boston as well in same similar of a role in neighborhood uh well it was I've done a number of different things I I actually oversaw um the Housing and Community Development um uh design and construction unit okay uh and then I started an Initiative for uh the for in in the minino administration on sustainable development um I did that for about six seven years and out of that one of the projects that I was working on was the um um was looking at data on for um sustainable development about understanding how how do you understand progress change and sustainability which was the Boston indicators project so how I have to ask you this since you mentioned mayor manino I I was a big fan of him you know what a gem guy very interesting person you know he was like everyone's Uncle he knew I remember going out in community for community events with him and he would know the names of individuals he knew the names of kids he went to my son's school and figured out you know the kids had their names printed and he saw the last name pradan and he said I know your mother and my son hasn't forgotten that today he's 35 years that's I was going to tell you so at that time when he was a mayor I had started to work at the vason business J know okay and then I had a really very tight deadline just had about half an hour I had to file the story and I had to talk to the mayor so I just picked up the phone left a message that you know I need a call back from you in half an hour because I'm really on a tight deadline and then within 15 minutes my phone rings pick up the phone and said this is where many know and I have not forgotten that you know actually the same thing this um Ted Kennedy had you know all these keny had that too you know one day I went home I left a message in the office by the time I reach home my phone at that time there no cell phone the phone rings and said this is Ted caned so all the great people have these amazing amazing you know almost like a level of humanity Humanity where they will um you know they have respect for other people which I think is really amazing you know and I you're right I I saw that in Ted Kennedy and I seeno and and what happens there let's start there where you Bor I was born and I grew up in Kashmir um where in Kashmir in in Sagar in Kashmir I to say that D Lake D Lake yes that was D Lake was actually my architecture thesis was on Del okay excellent a beautiful beautiful place um and uh with very simple people very simple it was um uh you know I remember when I was growing up there used to be this you know joke about how the kashmiris never fought they never really fought they'd say come I'm going to fight you I'm going to fight you but they would actually not be they were not a violent group of people um so it breaks my heart actually to see what is happening uh to my hometown I of course I I'm born Hindu and I I uh I'm not religious I really believe a lot more in humanity and spirituality rather than religion so when did you leave Kashmir I left Kashmir when I was um well I left to go to college in New Delhi uh studying architecture at the age of 17 but I kept going back home and I think I truly left um Kashmir probably at the age of 2021 so my growing years you know the most formed years of your life were in Kashmir and um you know um I it just was a beautiful place and beautiful people and um uh you know growing up up in a beautiful place does things to your soul sure yeah when we had seen d l only in the movies you know the pictures so so now all the nice Bollywood 1960s movies all the romantic songs when I think about kmir I think about romance comes to kasm Kali that oh my God what a beautiful film yes so now uh so you move come to Delhi what brings you to us what what happens well um my husband um decided to come here both of my husband and I studied architecture in New Delhi that's where you met yes that's where we met and um after a few years uh you know the time when people not used to talk about love marriage it was just arranged marriage yeah yes it was one of the first ones I should say right I I would say I think there were a lot of love marriages around that time you know I see them all within my own family uh but yes it was unusual and particularly you know someone from Kashmir and a Punjabi family marrying a bihari like that was like but I cannot believe I have all the respect forar because they come from the B state but sure so um you know so actually I U we both studied in Delhi and then we had our own practice in Delhi and then in Patna and um um you know he decided uh to that he wanted to study uh do his Masters in architecture so he came here in 198 three and my my father-in-law used to work for the Asian development Bank in the Philippines so I and my little son went and stayed with my in-laws for about a year and a half and then I came here and the funny thing is that I came I had no intention of staying because uh my husband was going to finish his um Masters in architectural studies and I was going to stay here for a year because I wanted to see New York that was like I just wanted to see New York so we came here and um Once We Were Here i s started just sitting in on classes at Harvard and then I decided that I wanted to go back to school so my husband did decided to do a second Masters in urban planning and I did my masters in Urban Design at Harvard University and then my husband decided to do his PhD in political science so one thing led to the other and we just stayed on and on and on and 40 years later I'm still here excellent and what a great job you are doing with her commun foundation and we are really looking forward to seeing you on6 and thank you very much for your time thank you