Dear friend,
We are in a moment that demands more from all of us. As we grapple with the realities of 2025 and the political landscape that lies ahead, the path forward is uncertain but one thing is clear: we must come together. This is not a time for isolation. It is a time for collective action. For philanthropy to find its way with power and impact, we must shift money and resources in support of grassroots organizing. We’ll need to harness the strengths of NFG as a political home and community of funders committed to racial, gender, economic, disability, and climate justice.
Destruction brings calamity, but also the hope to heal, to rebuild. Even in dark hours, there is the possibility for reemergence and regeneration. Spring has returned. As plantlife reaches for the sun in order to emerge from dormancy, NFG is eagerly watching the seeds our members planted for the 2025 National Convening: Seeding (and Ceding) Transformational Power sprout! This year, we invited NFG’s network to help shape our time together through a Request for Proposals. In this month’s newsletter, we’re excited to preview the ideas, themes, and strategies you can expect to engage with during our time in Nashville.
This year’s theme, Seeding (and Ceding) Transformational Power, is all about bold ideas and collective action. Through deep discussion, we’ll strategize pathways for how philanthropy can take action to respond to accelerated authoritarianism and state violence against low-income, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and rural communities, as well as students, immigrants, and workers. In just a few short months, NFG’s community of grantmakers and members will play an important role in leading these conversations through sessions that uplift examples of grassroots organizing and how funders can help build community-led power for the long haul.
Below you’ll find core themes and questions that will be addressed by your peers during concurrent sessions at the Convening.
“As the South goes, so goes the nation.”: Regardless of where one resides, the cultural and economic battles that take place in the U.S. South impact the entire nation. A number of sessions at the convening will ground attendees in the rich history of movement organizing across Middle Tennessee and the South; highlight the intersectional efforts to advance racial, gender, economic, disability, and climate justice justice across the region; and reveal the interconnectedness of our struggle to build transformative power across the country. Sessions will grapple with:
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What it means to build social justice infrastructure in this time, and recent reports that demonstrate why it’s so critical to scale up this movement building in the South;
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How to build power to counter white nationalism through community building and organizing in Tennessee and nationally;
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How community and labor coalitions are organizing around and leveraging federal industrial policy dollars to secure good jobs, protect the environment, and create greater public accountability;
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The youth organizing that’s creating pathways for liberation for Tennesseans;
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Anti-democratic practices that seek to shrink the power and resources owed to communities of color;
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How climate disasters, environmental racism, and unjust recovery efforts disproportionately impact queer and trans people of color, and how grassroots movements are fighting for climate justice
Strategic interventions philanthropy can take in solidarity with movement: Philanthropy has a key role to play in the coming years to mitigate harm against the nonprofit sector and movement ecosystems across the country. Sessions will offer peer learning and support around:
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Highlighting how unique funding models and funder organizing tactics can lead to organizing wins across the country, and what's needed from philanthropy for the coming ten years to build a multiracial democracy;
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How to expand philanthropy’s capacity to resource the critical organizing, infrastructure, and leadership development of disability justice organizers to combat the ableism that helps fuel fascism;
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Different models for how funders can support place-based and trans-local power building efforts that embed culture and creativity as tools for catalyzing community change;
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How funders can support building narrative power that changes what’s possible for social movement ecosystems
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De-siloing climate funding, understanding the LandBack movement, and fully resourcing collection action towards the rematriation process;
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How philanthropy can help leverage creative legal and financial pathways to sustain movement organizations that are targets of repression.
Our highest hope for the 2025 National Convening is that we come together as a trusted community of funder members to meet, strategize, and build a united front in philanthropy for the challenges ahead. We imagine a space for rigorous discussion and accountability, training and capacity building, spaces for emergent and immediate pivots, and time to rest, build, and laugh with one another.
More information about the sessions described above will be available through the Whova app as we get closer to July. Until then, we want to remind you to register for the convening and book your accommodations. And stay tuned for a future newsletter where we’ll be previewing themes from NFG’s program-led sessions and mainstage plenaries.
In solidarity,
Team NFG