Money, Reparations, and the Courage to Repair Harm with Sahana Mehta

In this episode, our guest Sahana Mehta and I explore what it means to move money in ways that are genuinely aligned with justice, repair, and long-term social change. Sahana shares how growing up while watching her family’s wealth increase influenced the questions she began asking about accumulation and responsibility, and what she has learned from helping people with significant wealth navigate redistribution. We also explore why movements need committed communities of donors who can withstand setbacks, and why justice, peace, and repair are not passive ideals but active practices. Becoming politicized through the Movement for Black Lives Growing up alongside her family's increasing wealth Questioning the model minority myth and the American Dream Why redistribution can create guilt, shame, anxiety, and fear Making financial decisions that are integrated and sustainable How Liberation Ventures is building a culture of repair What repair looks like between people, institutions, and governments The Section 14 reparations campaign in Palm Springs What the reparations movement can learn from marriage equality Why peace, justice, and repair must be active practices Meet Sahana Mehta Sahana Mehta (she/her) is an organizer working to build the relationships, strategy, and power necessary to bring about the world that ought to be. As Director of Donor Organizing at Liberation Ventures, she moves resources and builds political will for reparations for slavery and its legacies, and for a broader culture of repair in the US. Before Liberation Ventures, Sahana spent three years at Resource Generation organizing high net wealth young people toward the equitable redistribution of land, wealth, and power. Sahana has also spent nearly a decade organizing within the South Asian diaspora on issues ranging from caste equity to gender justice, and is a proud board member of Asian Pacific Islander Domestic Violence Resource Project. Sahana is an advisor to the Jean Hardisty Initiative at Women Donors Network, Chosen Family Office, and South Asian SOAR. Her approach is grounded in her desire to honor values embedded across cultures: humility, responsibility, and reciprocity — and in learning from the past, from elders and ancestors, to chart our course. Sahana loves to travel and eat her way through the places she visits, often on street food tours where she learns how history, culture, and movements live in vibrant flavors. Resources Liberation Ventures https://liberationventures.org/ LinkedIn   / sahana-m-969ab9122   Email sahana@liberationventures.org #Reparations #WealthRedistribution #SocialJustice #Philanthropy #DonorOrganizing #RacialJustice #EconomicJustice #CultureOfRepair #MovementBuilding #LiberationVentures