By Susanna Penfield
I learned I had a trust fund the same year I began a Master’s program in Gender Studies. One million dollars, to be specific, in an account that had been set up 15 years prior.
Beyond overwhelm, this information was jarring. It was dissonant from how I saw myself—someone who grew up in a small, rural, and economically-diverse town; spent my college years writing, speaking, and organizing fellow students for justice; had recently begun an AmeriCorps position in an attempt to serve some sort of greater good; and was spending my off-work hours volunteering for mutual aid, fundraising for food equity, and protesting police brutality. In the narratives I knew, rich people were part of the problem. Not the solution.
I felt this money put me in direct opposition to the communities I wanted to be part of, the social movements I was participating in, the academic frameworks I had studied, and the identity I was claiming.
However, even within my overwhelm, I knew I wanted to align this wealth with action. So, I began seeking community and guidance. I joined Resource Generation, started working with a money coach, and developed a giving framework to start moving money into community-centric and justice-oriented projects. And, a few months later, I set up a call with financial advisors assigned to my account and began redistributing money from this trust back into community.
The skepticism was ripe regardless of where I encountered it. Reflecting on the contradiction I felt between my clarity to redistribute inherited wealth and the resistance this idea was met with, I decided to leverage the rich (hah) field of feminist and gender theory to explore how identities intersect with systems, and how this creates patterns.
Specifically, how my identity (as a white socialized woman) intersects with systems (of capitalism) to reinforce patterns (of wealth hoarding).
So, in an unabashedly biased move, I wrote a master’s dissertation titled The Impulse to Give: White Feminine Guilt in Narratives of Wealth.
Provocative? Apparently. Particularly for other white people who saw themselves in this story, many of whom bristled at the centrality of “guilt.” Guilt, as I learned through my research, is a recognition of harm and an emotional response to our own lack of action. This recognition is crucial. When listened to, it can be a call to align action with values. Guilt stands in opposition to shame, which stays internal and leads to denial, avoidance, and passivity. However, the recognition of guilt can also be painful—a confrontation with the way our previous actions (or passivity) have harmed others.
Guilt is the emotional seed from which my redistribution began.
However, since beginning to redistribute inherited wealth, a number of structural, mechanical, interpersonal, and emotional obstacles have denied, diverted or otherwise delayed me.
A trust fund is not simply an investment account, but a legal entity designed to hold and manage assets on someone’s behalf. It involves a grantor, who creates the trust fund and sets the terms (my grandfather); a beneficiary, who receives assets from the trust (me); and a trustee, who manages the fund’s assets and executes the grantor’s directives (the trust company). As a beneficiary of the trust, I quickly learned that I did not have ultimate control over how the money in the trust was allocated.
Because my trustee was a for-profit corporation rooted in the conventional practice of constant, unquestioned, monetary growth, my requests to both give bigger and invest regeneratively fell flat. In response, I was told that the trust was set up to exist in perpetuity— which was the trust company’s interpretation of my grandfather’s intentions now that he was no longer here to advocate for them.
Without knowing it at the time, I had come into direct confrontation with the wealth defense industry1 and had to scramble to find allies that could support a vision that stood in defiance to it. And I did — Morgan Curtis (money coach), Resource Generation (peer community), Good Ancestor Movement (community of practice), and many surprise allies in the form of financial advisors, attorneys, my own family members, and, as of 2023, the JEI community.
Encountering these continued obstacles alongside my ongoing external support led to a decision that felt a long time coming: the dissolution of the trust.
With my grandfather gone, my grandmother became the closest proxy to donors’ intent. She, along with a letter we found—written by my grandfather while he was undergoing cancer treatment in the 1990s—helped build the case that this trust structure prevented us from aligning inherited wealth with our family’s values. In the letter, my grandfather wrote:
Can I help others? Can I contribute back to this place, and this company of people? In my business life there have been a number of things we tried quite hard to change, to reform, or make a difference: youth employment, issues of poverty in Boston, education and school reform. It appears that we’ve made very little headway—I only regret we didn’t try harder.
This quote, alongside my grandmother’s explicit support and secret legal advocacy from the estate attorney who had helped draft the trust’s legal documents 15 years prior, allowed my mother, my two younger siblings, and me to write letters to the trust company advocating for dissolution of the account and outright distribution of assets.
And, after several months of resistance, it finally worked. Our letters unlocked not only the one million dollars I had inherited, but the four million cumulatively held in trust by all of us.
I know that these four million dollars will not fund a just transition or bridge the wealth gap on their own. Instead, I see my decision to unlock these assets as an invitation—for others to recognize the harm of holding onto excess and see the joy that can come from moving it back into community.
While my decision to bust the trust stemmed from guilt and a recognition of harm, it was also driven by an accompanying sense of responsibility. I came out of college with a fire in my belly, and the trust fund was the match. Particularly given the larger global context of 2020, I was eager to activate the resources I had to make tangible, positive impact.
Throughout this process, one of the most poignant lessons I learned is that money contains a story. For lineages that have been given the privilege and permission to grow wealth across generations, that money can become a time capsule—and for that reason, it is often frozen. The money becomes an attempt to preserve a memory that is described as a legacy but has morphed into a way to maintain power. For many, it didn’t begin that way. At first, the time capsule was a reminder that before this we had nothing, but now we have something, and it took hard work and sacrifice, and isn’t that worth preserving? But I’ve learned that we don’t have to refute our family story in order to evolve it.
Now, I am an active redistributor who gives, divests, and reinvests at a scale the conventional structure of the trust fund wouldn’t allow. Rather than guilt, I now feel pride—for myself, for my family, and our shared family story.
To this date, I have not given away the entirety of my inherited wealth. I continue to live in the question of “How much is enough?” and have learned to give big but also slow down; to factor in my own stability and security and make sure I’m not depleting my resources. To move from a place of sustainability and empowerment, not guilt.
This work has moved beyond individual action. Thanks to Stephanie Brobbey of Good Ancestor Movement, a friend, mentor, and co-conspirator, who saw me in a moment of directionlessness and said, “I’m applying for the Just Economy Institute fellowship, I think you should join.”
Thanks to leo freeman, my co-JEI fellow and radical financial advisor, who recognized that we were dreaming up a shared community. Together, we have launched Chosen Family Office, a platform facilitating connections between values-driven wealth holders and financial professionals aligned with social, economic, and climate justice movements.
Thanks to a fortuitous call with JEI advisor Dr. Steph Gripne, who invited me to join the launch team for Trustworthy Impact, a 100%-impact oriented trust company that prioritizes social and ecological return, rather than just financial profit.
Guilt may be a seed, but it’s not the blossom. And once that sprout breaks through the ground, it needs to be watered by community, collaboration, and honesty — so that we, those with privilege (racial, financial, class, or any combination), can begin to own our stories and move from a place of collective vision, not constant apology.
For me, JEI has been that space of collectivity. And I am so grateful.
You can continue to follow the process of me, owning my own story, through my Substack, The BUSTED Chronicles. Please reach out to share your own. Clearly I love a story and am always here to listen.
Susanna is the Director of Relationships for Chosen Family Office, a platform for connecting values-driven wealth holders with justice-oriented financial professionals. She is also a Senior Fellow with the Impact Finance Center and is part of the launch team for Trustworthy Impact, the first-ever 100% impact-oriented independent trust company. In addition, she is an alumna of the Just Economy Institute, co-leader of the Vermont chapter of Resource Generation, member of the Solidaire Network, and writer of The BUSTED Chronicles. Susanna holds an MSc in Gender Studies from the London School of Economics, where her research focused on the catalyzing role of white feminine guilt in narratives of wealth. She also earned a BA in Political Science and Feminist and Gender Studies from Colorado College. Susanna is an avid reader, skier, biker, runner, and occasional polar plunger. Born and raised in Vermont, she currently lives with her partner in Albuquerque, NM.
- Described as “an army of lawyers, consultants, accountants, and more who get paid millions to help their clients hide trillions” — further explored by fellow inheritor, wealth redistributor and equity advocate Chuck Collins in his book The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions. ↩︎
