Dear friend,
This month over 1,000 funders, organizers, and community leaders will gather in Minneapolis, MN from October 27-30 for CHANGE Philanthropy’s Unity Summit under the theme: Mobilizing and Organizing Philanthropy to Meet the Moment. The 2025 Unity Summit will apply a “Learn, Apply, Act” framework—moving attendees along a ladder of engagement each day, through a mix of dynamic plenaries + sessions, community learning exchanges, and time for relationship building.
As one of CHANGE Philanthropy’s 10 partners, Neighborhood Funders Group (NFG) serves on the Unity Summit planning committee. Our team offers a special thank you to NFG staff representatives, Neda Said and Chimene Okere, for their work creating a program that stresses the importance of strengthening our movements, increasing investments in our communities, and advancing strategies for building power, solidarity, and justice in philanthropy.
If you will be attending the 2025 Unity Summit, please consider attending one (or more!) of NFG’s sessions!
- 10/27 | Funder Organizing Workshop: From Racial Capitalism to Resourcing Movements
In this pre-conference workshop, we will build your skills and understanding of philanthropy as an outgrowth of racial capitalism, and how philanthropy also perpetuates these dynamics. We’ll also explore how we can begin to chip away at this impact and move in deeper alignment with progressive movements. We’ll also learn what it means to be a funder organizer, complete with skill-building activities to transform ourselves, our peers, and our institutions. Note: Additional registration is required to attend this pre-conference workshop. Please register here.
- 10/28 | Fighting Fatigue after Flashpoints: What Happens to Communities and Issues When Funders Aren’t In It for the Long Haul
In this opening plenary prepared by NFG’s new Co-Presidents, Amanda Andere and Stephanie Chan, we ask philanthropy to reflect on its role in supporting communities and building movements past flashpoints. It’s been five years since murder of George Floyd, three years since the repeal of Roe v. Wade, four years since the Atlanta Shooting, nine years since the Pulse Night Club Massacre, and twenty years since Hurricane Katrina. As we face cascading crises, what more can allies in the philanthropic sector learn from freedom fighters on the frontlines? How best can philanthropy support advocates and communities beyond the flashpoints in hopes of building durable community-power rooted in equity and embracing respect for a diverse society?
- 10/28 | Accountability in Action: Lessons from Leadership Transition
This session shares actionable insights from NFG's two-year organizational development and leadership search process at NFG that reimagined leadership, applied a racial equity lens to hard truths, and restructured for resilience. Participants will gain tools for assessing leadership models, strengthening executive support, embedding equity into systems, and navigating leadership transitions with integrity. This session meets the moment by modeling how movement organizations can do what the times demand—change ourselves to change the world.
- 10/29 | Collaborative Organizing to Build Power in Rural Western Colorado
Hosted by Integrated Rural Strategies Group (IRSG), this session is about how collective organizing across rural western Colorado is protecting vulnerable community members, combating worker exploitation, and changing unjust systems. Like other tourism-heavy rural areas across the inter-mountain west, vast disparities have created a region rife with economic inequities. We'll highlight how organizers are building trust within communities, collaborating across organizations, and leveraging legal tools to disrupt the unjust status quo and build lasting power. The session will highlight how, even without formal MOUs or clear coalition structures that funders might be more familiar with and poised to fund, organizations are collectively working together to make real headway in protecting vulnerable community members and organizing to advance community solutions.
- 10/30 | Critical Discourse: Movement & Philanthropy at a Power Building Crossroads
This session, featuring Democratizing Development Program’s Director, Chimene Okere, brings together leaders representing different sectors across our movement (funders, PSOs, frontline organizers, and knowledge curators), to engage in critical discourse looking back on mistakes we’ve made and how we’ve pivoted in our pursuits to move forward. This cross-cutting dialogue uplifts solutionary voices from the field, bold foundations taking action, and clear strategies that work in building self determined communities, strong local economies, and justice for all. Attendees will leave with a clear understanding of where they stand on the power building continuum, and what they can do to enact their agency while practicing greater movement alignment as funders, PSOs, knowledge institutions, or grassroots leaders.
We look forward to being in community with so many NFG members and partners in the Twin Cities to continue building upon the work we seeded in Nashville at NFG’s 2025 National Convening and creating the conditions for bold, collective action in our sector.
Lastly, whether or not we'll see you at the CHANGE Unity Summit, don't forget to register for the upcoming NFG Member Call with Amanda and Stephanie on Wednesday, November 5th.
In solidarity,
Team NFG