NFG Newsletter

Dear friend, For years Neighborhood Funders Group has been a place for meaning-making in philanthropy, a political home for funders to learn how to shift power and resources to BIPOC and low-income communities. As a connector of people, place, and power, our work at NFG is deeply relational. Nearly a year ago, NFG hosted its 2023…

Dear friend, I recently had the opportunity to travel to Kerala, a state within India, located on the Malabar Coast. While there, I visited a bird sanctuary in the backwaters of Alleppey, and had long conversations with local friends and their families about the most recent worker strike over filter coffee. Kerala has a rich…

Dear friend, As a Lakota person who has lived most of my life in a rural landscape, I am deeply familiar with both the innovation and struggle that comprise rural life. Across the US, insufficient investment and policy enacted without community input continues to erode basic access to housing, food, and healthcare in rural communities;…

Dear friend, Winter often represents a time of challenging transition as we navigate the darkness and dormancy, but now is not the time for hibernation. Our sector must continue moving money to racial, gender, economic, disability, and climate justice and organizing to liberate philanthropic assets. At NFG, we are energized by the bold and strategic…

Dear friend, I am writing this message to you having just returned from NFG’s final all-staff gathering of 2023. We met in New Orleans to celebrate the organization’s accomplishments over the past year; engage staff in our organizational development and transition process; and spend some in-person time planning for 2024 and deepening our relationships as…

Dear friend, What a joy to write to you from my new position as the Senior Director of the Amplify Fund at NFG! For nearly 18 years (through my roles with the Arcus Foundation, Ms. Foundation for Women, and Grantmakers for Southern Progress) I’ve been on the receiving end of these NFG newsletters. I’m thrilled that as…

Hello friend, This past July, Neighborhood Funders Group wrapped up the second cohort in our Racial Capitalism Community of Practice. Seeing this work grow continues to be heartening. We now have over 50 funder members who have completed the cohort — spending hours on reflective political education, building community with one another, and designing actionable projects…

Hello friend, Last month marked my four year anniversary as part of team NFG! Part of my role as Director of Membership and Communications is to onboard new members who have recently joined NFG to co-conspire with our network of grantmakers to accelerate racial, gender, economic, disability, and climate justice. I also meet with our…

Hello friend, I’m Manisha Vaze, and after five years of working with the Funders for a Just Economy program, I feel very privileged to move into more leadership at Neighborhood Funders Group as the new Vice President of Programs. For those of you who I haven’t gotten to know or build with yet, I’m writing…

Dear friend, I became NFG’s Communications Manager a few months ago. It was the middle of January — the start of a new year and a new chapter of my career. From the interview process, to check-ins with my manager and teammates, to the staff and board gathering we held in March, I have learned so much…

Dear friend, I am writing to you fresh off the heels of our 2023 National Convening in Wilmington, NC — the first in-person convening NFG has hosted since 2018! Throughout the convening, as we exercised our regathering muscle as a community, we dove into a range of topics, including thinking big about the potential impacts…

Dear friend, NFG’s 2023 National Convening is one month away! We’ve been planning this convening since 2021 and are deeply appreciative of the support and guidance of our members and partners who have helped us shape our incredible convening program, including our convening Co-chairs — Chi-Ante Jones of Kolibri Foundation & Cypress Fund and Tania Durán of Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. In…

“It’s all about connection!”  That’s what I thought to myself as I left my 80 degree home to get on a 6:30am flight to unseasonably chilly Los Angeles, just in time for Southern California’s latest atmospheric river (eeep!), to gather with my NFG colleagues and Board. The NFG team last gathered in person in September 2022,…

Dear friend, I’m immensely proud of the ways that Neighborhood Funders Group pairs principle with practice in a myriad of ways — in our programmatic priorities, relationships with movement, collaboration as colleagues, and even internal operations. As a community organizer, I know that fighting the violent systems that structure our society is grueling work. I’ve also seen us…

Dear friend, I’ve been thinking about nutrition lately — not nutrition in the toxic diet culture way — but nutrition as in the necessary ingredients that fuel our bodies and also our spirits, our communities, and our movements. This thinking was in part prompted by Alice Sparkly Kat’s 2023 horoscopes. I’m an Aquarius sun (happy Aquarius…

Dear NFG Community, I hope that you’re finding an abundance of joy and reflection as we move towards the end of this year, and that you can radically rest and connect with your loved ones before the beginning of 2023. I last wrote to you in June, right as Neighborhood Funders Group embarked on a…