Our guest, Tirrea Billings, artivist, educator, and storyteller at Philanthropy Unfiltered, encourages us to reimagine what the work of social justice and resistance looks like within the context of organizations & art.

About Tirrea

Tirrea Billings is an artivist, educator, and storyteller who writes about the nonprofit industrial complex. She has a BA in Film Studies and an MA in Communication from Western Michigan University. Her work focuses on amplifying voices that have been systematically excluded from mainstream conversations about power, policy, and change.

Through her platform, Philanthropy Unfiltered, she writes openly about contradictions, dysfunction, and new opportunities within social change work — creating space for practitioners, funders, and organizers to imagine more liberatory approaches. Tirrea believes in the potential of radically honest dialogue and the power of imagination to transform systems to better serve communities.

Resources & Links

Read Tirrea’s Substack essay: “Bad Onboarding Breaks People”

Read Tirrea’s Substack essay: The Master’s Tools: How Traditional Grantmaking Blocks Liberation

Listen to Ruby Sales on On Being: “Where Does It Hurt?”

Watch “The First Step” — a documentary exploring dialogue, reform, and radical empathy

Follow Tirrea on Instagram | LinkedIn | Substack

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