Dear friend,
I’m excited to welcome the Neighborhood Funders Group community to 2025! I’m returning from NFG’s winter office closure feeling energized to continue working towards a reality where BIPOC and low-income communities are funded with all philanthropic assets in this current political moment.
2024 was a big year for NFG. Together with you all, we advanced important work within the sector:
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After years of engagement with leaders in rural New York, NFG’s Integrated Rural Strategies Program (IRSG) officially launched its New York Rural Organizing Portfolio, an aligned funding project that has already unlocked $125,000 of committed funds to support 13 organizations who are working in rural communities on issues around health (mental, maternal, etc.) equity, criminal justice, food systems, worker justice.
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Participants in the 2024 Racial Capitalism Community of Practice hosted by NFG’s Funders for a Just Economy (FJE) learned frameworks for building an inclusive economy and explored new ways to incorporate anti-racist practices into their grantmaking. Participants from the Meyer Foundation shared that their learnings directly influenced a strategic refresh with an emphasis on supporting community power building and a commitment to moving funds to the grassroots more flexibly and rapidly. Participants from the Foundation shared they “learned what is needed to build and sustain liberated, safe, and abundant communities for people that address and dismantle systemic inequities,” and “connected with other like-minded funders to exchange strategy and build community.”
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Amplify Fund continued to support locally-designed grantmaking strategies to build power in eight places across the country. There are countless stories from this year of how that funding has supported Amplify’s grantees to make meaningful change in their communities. One significant win was clinched in late 2024 by grantee partners Stand Up Nashville and The Equity Alliance as members of the Shift Nashville coalition alongside the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition. Together, they organized and won a campaign to implement an ambitious, tax-funded transit plan that goes beyond temporary fixes to make the Nashville metro area more liveable and sustainable for all.
We made significant strides internally last year as well. To ready the organization for new leadership we finalized our first Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with our staff union; added dedicated staff capacity in HR and Development; returned to robust in-person programming; reached the decision to adopt a new Co-President leadership model; and launched the search for those new leaders. I’m proud to have supported the organization to accomplish these goals in my time as Interim President. And, at the completion of the search later this year, I’ll stand ready to support incoming leadership as they onboard. Then, I’m excited to move on to new endeavors.
In this new year as we come to understand what the political reality will hold for us and our communities in 2025 and beyond, we know uncertainty abounds. We face rising authoritarianism and many questions about what has brought us to this moment. But this I know to be true: We will need each other to find our way through this time with power and effectiveness, to organize money and resources so that Black, Indigenous, people of color and low income communities thrive, to stave off the impacts of rising authoritarianism, and also build the world we aspire to. NFG as a space of funder organizing to both coalesce and agitate will be as important as ever, not only because funders will need a political home with a sharp, intersectional analysis, but also a place to help operationalize that analysis through powerful grantmaking. And so, instead of retreating and throwing up our hands in the face of the unknown, now is the time to increase funds and opportunities for movements working towards racial, gender, economic, climate, and disability justice. NFG is primed to continue to be a home for members who are working toward greater accountability to movement leaders, and to organize for ever more strategic philanthropic action in support of BIPOC and low income community power building.
As we take the final steps in 2025 to ready NFG for new Co-Presidents, I am fueled by a deep belief that this organization is ready for new leadership with fresh energy, bold vision, and clarity of purpose to respond to what comes next. While our network has evolved over the years, the same clarity of purpose drives our membership – the importance of building power in BIPOC and low-income communities, energized by the connection between people and grounded in place.
I’ve said it before, but I really do believe NFG’s future leaders are likely already a part of the NFG community or very closely connected. If you are motivated to lead NFG’s future trajectory, please apply! And, please support us in making sure the position profile reaches potential candidates far and wide.
For those of you looking to plug into our work in other ways this year, I guarantee 2025 has lots to offer! Reach out to the team if you have questions, are looking for a co-conspirator in the work, or to learn about opportunities for greater participation with a program. Join one of our programs’ many upcoming events, including IRSG’s fifth annual Rural Equity Summit or apply for FJE’s Racial Capitalism Community of Practice (CoP) fifth cohort (applications are open, the deadline to apply is February 12). And don’t forget, NFG’s 2025 Convening in Nashville, TN July 15-17, 2025 is fast approaching — there’s still time to submit a session proposal and registration details will be available soon.
Community has always been an anchor for NFG, in the years to come, we will need to double down on that to meet the moment; join us!
In solidarity,
Amy
