Resources Archives - Neighborhood Funders Group

IRSG at Philanthropy Northwest: Building Rural Community Power at the Intersections of Economic, Racial, Land, and Gender Justice

Power. Rural. Community. Impact. Real talk about what it takes for funders to achieve the types of wins they so eagerly want to see. Spoiler alert: It’s both as hard to do as we hate to admit, but it’s also easier than we let ourselves think… An Actionable Recap of the Integrated Rural Strategies Group’s…

Hurricane Helene Disaster Recovery

Rurality, Poverty, and Race On September 26, Hurricane Helene made groundfall – hitting northern Florida at peak intensity and imparting deadly and devastating destruction over 48 hours on its 500 mile path across the Southeast. This part of the country is, as we know, all too well acquainted with climate disasters, particularly the increasingly destructive…

Building Collectively: 4 Takeaways from Movement-Led Community Ownership Models

Developed by Chimene Okere and Tara Mohtadi, designed by Karla Flemming Within a solidarity economy framework, community ownership has emerged as a strategy for communities to steward land, resources, and capital, shifting power and wealth from banks and corporations, and redistributing it to those who have been most impacted by cycles of extraction and…

Threats to federal funding are looming: Philanthropy must unite to supercharge grassroots capacity to access funds

BY Dion Cartwright, President & CEO, The Funders Network | Ansje Miller, Executive Director, Health and Environmental Funders Network | Manisha Vaze, Vice President of Programs, Neighborhood Funders Group The single largest public investment in our lifetime to improve America’s infrastructure and climate resilience is underway. Nearly $500 billion has already been awarded to states, Tribes, territories, and local…

Do Better: Grantmaking Principles and Practices Toward Community Accountability

Introduction Principles and practices that center community accountability should be part of philanthropy’s core purpose. Considering the history of philanthropy [1], we know that philanthropy does not own the resources it contains, and we must fully support community-identified priorities and community-led change. This resource was adapted from content from an NFG hosted webinar titled “Do…

IRSG’s 2024 Rural Equity Summit Resource Page

Summit Day 1: Wednesday, February 21, 2024 We are happy to share this recap and report out from our powerful time together on February 21st and 22nd. This resource page includes key takeaways, recordings, slides, resources, and funding opportunities presented in the Summit. Introduction & Context Setting Speakers Lindsay Ryder, Director, Integrated Rural Strategies Group,…

Values Aligned Investment Praxis Group

NFG’s Values Aligned Investment Praxis Group provides a dedicated space for foundation CEOs and Presidents to learn and experiment with a group of trusted peers who aim to shift their endowment investments into greater alignment with their institutional missions. An outgrowth of the Philanthropy Forward alumni network, the community of practice is focused on social…

Philanthropy’s Contradiction in the Latest Housing Crisis

Just a few years after the 2008 foreclosure crisis, tenants and residents are yet again facing another housing crisis. Eviction rates are 50% higher than pre-pandemic levels, the number of individuals experiencing homelessness has reached all time highs with an estimated one in ten 18-25 year olds expected to experience homelessness, and recent data report…

Journey Toward Intersectional Grantmaking

We at Funders for a New Economy (FJE) and the Neighborhood Funders Group (NFG) believe we have a critical mass of people of color and white allies within philanthropy who are interested in a new path— who are ready to talk about race, who are ready to acknowledge that this country’s economic policies were not…

IRSG Rural Organizing Dialogue Series

Over the course of the summer, IRSG held a Rural Organizing Dialogue Series. This series was educational and genuine! It was a space for funders in IRSG’s network to get to know this work and the rural leaders that are holding and leading it. The dialogue featured many of IRSG’s Movement Advisors and created opportunity to…

Event Recap: 9/15 Indiana Co-Governance Funder Briefing

In Indianapolis, gun violence is down 20% so far this year for the first time in a decade; a new crisis response system supports people in crisis to get the care they deserve rather than ending up behind bars; and the nation’s strongest civilian oversight body over law enforcement, created just nine month ago, has…

Midwest Summer 2022 Newsletter: Collective Courage ✨

With all we are holding, I hope you are also finding sweetness in this final stretch of our Midwest summer. Each day, I have the honor of working with movement workers and funders who teach me what it means to be courageous enough to build the world we want. Individual brave acts are powerful. So…

Actualizing our values: A gathering in rural Oregon grounds IRSG’s work in community and place

by Lindsay Ryder, Director, Integrated Rural Strategies Group The week before last was a gift. The Integrated Rural Strategies Group (IRSG) gathered its Rural Movement Advisors in Woodburn, Oregon* for a week of rest, reflection, joy, tequio, and breaking bread together. The impetus for this gathering was to renew our partnership with this group of…

The Future of Amplify

In 2021 Amplify staff and Steering Committee got clear the Fund would extend beyond it’s original 4-year planned lifespan; in 2022 we are designing the “Future of Amplify,” guided by a sharpened set of values*. While the first version of our theory of change, created by our early funders and staff, served us well, so…

Midwest Spring 2022 Newsletter: Seeding Change 🌱

I am so honored to say hello to you as the Program Manager of the Midwest Organizing Infrastructure Funders (Midwest Program) at Neighborhood Funders Group. I shifted into this role from Sr. Program Coordinator last month, a transition that has paralleled the Midwest’s journey into spring. In recent years, I have begun gardening vegetables, which has been…

Amplify Members as Funder Organizers

Unlike many other pooled funds, the Amplify Fund Steering Committee is committed to doing the work of funder organizing. Now representing twenty one funder members, the Steering Committee re-asserted their central role as funder organizers in 2021, but this responsibility is at the roots of the fund. In 2017, a rare opportunity to influence significant…

DDP February 2022 Newsletter

Hello friend, Wishing you all a safe and healthful 2022. We hope you had a restorative holiday break and that you are easing into work feeling hopeful. Thank you to all who joined us for The Why and How of Ceding Power to Community Organizations to Achieve Systems Change, our webinar last week with Fund for…

Indigenous-led Funding Opportunities

Philanthropy needs to move more resources and power to Indigenous-led groups. In honor of Native American Heritage Month in November, here is a list of Indigenous-led organizations you can fund today and every day. This list was compiled by NFG teammate Stephan Cheney, who is Lakota of the Kul Wicasa Oyate located in Lower Brule,…

Amplify Fund Collaboration Grants

Aligned with our initial theory of change that stated a commitment to “fund an ecosystem of groups and prioritize deep collaboration,” in 2021 we introduced collaboration grants. These grants support work that Amplify grantees are taking on with other trusted allies. In 2021, Amplify granted $634,000 to 16 collaborations. in two rounds of funding. In…