This publication from Movement Tapestries offers insights and guidance for organizations navigating equity-embedded transformations, and the challenges that can come with embarking on such journeys.
Our foundation is interested in creating a grant opportunity for local faith communities to apply to support the creation or ongoing support of an existing program. If your foundation has this type of opportunity, I’d be interested in your grant criteria, etc.
As the professional fall gets underway, I write with a question about payment of peer reviewers. We are currently examining our practices, and I am curious if there is an implicit consensus about compensation for reading and evaluating grant applications among funders.
I am exploring the idea of funding quality improvement collaboratives that focus on maternal care and infant health up to one year of age. I’m tossing around some ideas in my head but I would love to learn from others who have done something similar in a rural context. What were some of the lessons learned? How was the funding opportunity structured given some of the constraints in terms of providers, geographic variations and organizations?
Do you know of any examples or best practices on how to serve grantee cohorts and grantees when they speak different languages?
Democracy Fund is part of a state funder collaborative in North Carolina that will support a cohort of local news and information nonprofits through grants, and probably will have at least one organization that has leaders that speak primarily Spanish. We also are hoping to support some convenings, as well as other types of resources such as informal mentorships, readings, etc.
We hope to continue to make this funder collaborative’s offerings, as well as other work we do beyond NC, more accessible to organizations that have staff and leaders that speak languages other than English. We started by making this collaborative’s application and guidelines available in Spanish, and provided an interpreter for conversations during the application process, but know that we could do more.
Thanks for any thoughts, ideas, feedback or links!
Over the last 20 years, the GEO community has worked to transform a desire for results into real improvements by creating spaces where grantmakers learn together and use that learning to drive concrete changes in the way grantmaking work gets done. As a field, we've made progress. And, as we continue learning together, our understanding of effective philanthropy evolves.
Christina Canales Gorczynski highlighted the Simmons Foundation's work to address the power dynamics inherent in philanthropy and how the foundation identified avenues for communities to drive and direct change.
Organizations seeking to support authentic change on complex, multi-layered issues often find that listening to and being in relationship with impacted communities is central to the work.
How do we invite conversations with the two communities we’ve identified for this shift, without sounding alarms both within those communities (by some who might fear that the Foundation will impose an unwelcome agenda) and outside those communities (by former grantees who will no longer be eligible for funding)?
Collaborations for Change is a strategy used by the John T. Vucurevich Foundation as a key to solving issues. JTVF seeks to understand community issues through partnerships with others.
