Neighborhood Funders Group is a place for meaning-making in philanthropy. We offer funders a political home: a place to connect, strategize, and take action.
A big part of how we make meaning and take action is incubating spaces for funders to organize and grow new initiatives — all toward the ultimate goal of shifting money and power in philanthropy to justice and equity.
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These initiatives include Funders for Justice (FFJ), an NFG program that was created in 2014 to mobilize funding resources in solidarity with the uprisings in Ferguson, Missouri, and Black communities and other communities of color resisting state violence and criminalization around the country. Since the first phone call where the idea was sparked, FFJ Director Lorraine Ramirez and NFG staff & members worked in close partnership with movement leaders to grow and nurture FFJ as an NFG program.
Over the past six years, FFJ has mobilized millions of dollars to support grassroots organizing led by and for people of color at the intersections of racial justice, gender justice, anti-criminalization, and models for community safety and justice. FFJ expanded NFG’s intersectional political framework and deepened NFG’s relationship with movement leaders. And now, FFJ is ready to take root on its own.
At the end of 2020, FFJ will transition out of NFG to build upon its growth and continue mobilizing resources to grassroots organizing. With this transition, Lorraine will become FFJ’s Executive Director. Please follow FFJ’s next journey at www.funders4justice.org and keep in touch with Lorraine at info [@] funders4justice.org. On behalf of the entire NFG team, I extend so much gratitude and appreciation to Lorraine, Shaena Johnson — FFJ’s new Program Director, and FFJ co-chairs Molly Schultz Hafid of Butler Family Fund, Tynesha McHarris of Black Harvest, and Manuela Arciniegas of Andrus Family Fund. I look forward to continued and ongoing collaboration between NFG and FFJ to push philanthropy to support grassroots power building so that Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities thrive.
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As we celebrate FFJ’s next stage of growth, I am also excited to announce that the LIFT Fund and NFG have developed a strategic partnership. The LIFT Fund is now a fiscally-sponsored project at NFG, and will continue to be led by Valeria Treves, Director, and Jennifer Muñoz, Program Coordinator.
Established in 2011 as a partnership between the AFL-CIO and philanthropic institutions, the Labor Innovations for the 21st Century (LIFT) Fund is a first-of-its-kind fund that supports collaboration and innovation around new forms of worker organizing through grantmaking, creating convening spaces, and disseminating research and learnings. Since its founding, the LIFT Fund has moved over $4.5 million in grants to more than 90 collaborative worker organizing projects that are engaged in cutting-edge strategies for building worker power.
NFG and the LIFT Fund share a commitment to a powerful worker justice movement. We have been close collaborators in propelling philanthropy and labor to be movement partners — especially through NFG’s Funders for a Just Economy program.
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Please join me in wishing a warm farewell to Funders for Justice and a warm welcome to the LIFT Fund as a fiscally sponsored project.
I am honored to lead NFG into the next year as we grow, change, and respond to the needs of the moment for both philanthropy and our communities. My commitment to organize funders who are moving more money to Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities and accelerating racial, economic, gender, and climate justice is steadfast. NFG has been the place to find my co-conspirators in this work, and I am excited to continue to build with each of you.
In community,
Adriana Rocha
President
Neighborhood Funders Group