Love, RUNWAY: The Art of Loving - Definition and Theory

LOVE, RUNWAY is an ongoing series of original written works by members of the RUNWAY team to remind ourselves and each other of the love we share for our work, our communities, and our people. To continue developing the muscle of reimagining what the world would look like if the economy loved Black people we write love letters to different points in humanity's timeline. We hope these stories will help others connect with our purpose and showcase the richly textured humans behind our work.

I love you. And in the year 2025 where capitalism still reigns largely supreme, I feel compelled to ground myself in the simple yet powerful act of loving. 

What I value most about this journey––and what I hope has extended into a life of far more ease in your futures––is how deeply necessary it is to love at every intersection of financial activism and organizing. 

Before joining RUNWAY, someone close to me pointed out that I had a tendency to become too emotionally invested in a mission. When the former organization I was at lost its direction, I found myself doing work for the sake of labor, rather than in service to a shared purpose. In those moments, I felt dejected, untethered, and angry, as if my heart had been broken. I was advised to care a little less about work, since “it’s just a means to an end.”

That didn’t sit right with me. Separating my care, love, and emotions from my work seemed counterproductive; it felt like actively ignoring a vital energy source. How could I have such a deep capacity for love and not weave it into every part of my life? My purpose is to ignite people, movements, and stories—because we are filled with endless possibilities. Few things are more sustaining and fulfilling than seeing something come to life and witnessing the joy it brings to its creators. So, I began seeking out opportunities that gave me space to shape both how I work and the impact I created in ways that felt truly sustainable. It was trial and error. Success came when I found RUNWAY. Or, in many ways, like for many of us, when RUNWAY found me. 

My role as the Director of Education and Training at RUNWAY allows me to celebrate this alignment every day. Even in 2025, where the weight of “isms”––and the exhaustion of Black women––is deeply present. It surrounds me, us. Yet, this work, on this team, has sustained hope and joy and lightness amidst it all. 

I have been searching for the throughline that connects my values to how I choose to exist in both my personal and professional spaces. I wanted to understand what love, work, and self share in common because I could feel their connected treads pulling at me. I know this to be possible. 

I have spent the better part of the last two years endeavoring to comprehend “love.” I have sought to understand it as a theory, as a practice, as an art. I wanted expanded language to express how my capacity and depth to love are intrinsically linked to the work I choose to participate in and how I choose to do so. It was the addition of another team member that led me down this path of exploring how love intersects and is integral to doing heart work. Leila’s co-written piece “Love in Philanthropy” allowed me to connect concepts from psychologist Erich Fromm’s “The Art of Loving,” Thich Nhat Hanh’s “How to Love,” and Mia Birdsong’s “How We Show Up” to create some understanding of the ways in which love informs and influences this work, our work, my work. Here is what I’ve learned thus far: 

Erich Fromm proclaims to us in The Art of Loving, “To actively love, one must feel a level of responsibility for the other.” 

bell hooks reminds us that “The word ‘love’ is most often defined as a noun, yet we would all love better if we used it as a verb… Imagine how much easier it would be for us to learn how to love if we began with a shared definition.”

Love is a practice (action/activity) as much as it is a philosophy and consideration (noun/passive). We are encouraged to separate work and life––to balance between the two as if they did not inform one another––and in doing so, effectively remove our “love” from our work.  If I have to survive in this system, I am going to do it from a place of love. Where capitalism asks us to consume and costume in individualism, I have charged (sometimes bullheaded-ly) in the direction that allows me to give as much as I can to as many as I can. I hope you all feel that. I hope you feel held in it.

“The ability to love…depends on our capacity to grow, to develop a productive orientation to the world and ourselves.”

My role at RUNWAY as the Director of Education and Training has felt like a fitting conduit for this overflow of energy––an opportunity to find new ways to share with people around me and to receive what they want to share as well. There is something deeply humbling about the process by which we design a learning experience, particularly for people within our own community and universe. What do each of us already know? Where are the gaps? How do we best share information? How do we best receive information? How do we provide care when the information shared is heavy and takes an emotional toll? In many ways, Education & Training has been my hub of curiosity and exploration––an opportunity to play with what is possible in how we talk about finance, money, capital, and Blackness with our partners, funders, entrepreneur community, and supporters.

I had been searching for a space that “feels like home” for ages. Seeking spaces where I can feel like my full weird and complex self, where I can be held in deep, deep love, where I can feel safe. But I didn’t know how to explain what that feeling was or what it could look like. Frustrated by my inability to find the right words, I want to express how “home” and “love” shape each other and create an environment that I know is possible—not just in our personal lives, where we’re often taught to confine these ideals, but in every aspect of how we engage with the world, including work.

Joining RUNWAY has been a homecoming. It has been a return to a community that I know and feel loves me deeply. As it turns out, that is the “home” I was looking for–– a space to pour into work that I know expands out into the world that shaped me, into the kind of businesses that raised me.

I do this work as a member of my community, immediate and global, with deep love for it and a responsibility to it. The ability to connect people through small businesses that create the vibrant spaces that nurture, sustain, and transform us is one way we can honor that commitment and create more opportunities for whoever comes next.

Dear Team, the love I have for you all has continued to fuel me,  to catalyze me and to remind me what is possible. 

All my love,

Naima McQueen

Naima McQueen (She/Her) is a weaver of stories and experiences, convener, and strategist. She is a lover of people and systems AND people as systems and is driven by the passion, ideas and joy of others and the process of bringing those to actualization.