Cultivate the Soul Podcast: New Episode with Hilary Giovale

What does it mean to become a good relative as a philanthopist?

In our newest Cultivate the Soul Podcast episode, we speak with Hilary Giovale, author of Becoming a Good Relative: Calling White Settlers toward Truth, Healing & Repair, about her powerful four-year journey of confronting settler ancestry, healing personal and ancestral wounds, and reimagining philanthropy as a practice of humility, reciprocity, and repair.

Hilary shares with deep vulnerability and wisdom:

• How she faced the histories that shaped her privilege
• What healing looks like for wealth holders and philanthropists
• The sacred longing for reconnection with land, lineage, and community
• What interpersonal and reparative philanthropy invites of us?
• How we can each begin the work of becoming a good relative—to Earth, to history, and to one another

This conversation is an invitation to slow down, listen deeply, and reimagine how we engage in social change—not from guilt or urgency, but from responsibility, relationship, and love.

Hilary Giovale is a mother, writer, facilitator, and community organizer who holds a Master’s Degree in Good and Sustainable Communities. She has taught improvisational dance and has served on the boards of philanthropic, human rights, and environmental organizations. Descended from the Celtic, Germanic, Nordic, and Indigenous peoples of Ancient Europe, she is a ninth-generation American settler. For most of her life these origins were obscured by whiteness. After learning more about her ancestors’ history, Hilary began emerging from a fog of amnesia, denial, and fragmentation. For the first time, she could see a painful reality: her family’s occupation of this land has harmed Indigenous and African peoples, cultures, lands, and lifeways. With this realization, her life changed.  How can I become a good relative? This inquiry guides Hilary’s work, including her writing, teaching, and reparative philanthropy. Divesting from settler colonialism and whiteness, she seeks to follow Indigenous and Black leadership in support of healing, mutual liberation, and equitable futures. She is the author of the award-winning book Becoming a Good Relative: Calling White Settlers toward Truth, Healing, and Repair. Go deeper with Hilary’s Guide to Making a Personal Reparations Plan, and find a copy of her book here. 100% of book proceeds go to the Decolonizing Wealth Project and Jubilee Justice.

Listen now by visiting: Podcast: Cultivate the Soul | Synergos

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