Community Power-Building Archives - Neighborhood Funders Group

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…

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…

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…

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…

2023 March Amplify Newsletter

Dear friends, Amplify Fund was originally created to support groups at the intersection of racial justice, power building, and equitable development. Our new vision focuses on generational wealth building, land justice, holistic well-being, and human dignity. In other words, our grantees work on a variety of issues. To read about some of the amazing strides they made in…

Midwest 2022 Year-End Newsletter: Rest, Adaptation, + Fireside in January!

These shorter, colder days have required me to rest more, slow down, and re-arrange my work days to catch the daylight for myself and little ones. And it always feels so hard because it disrupts and challenges how I have been taught to survive racial capitalism: to use urgency as a default reaction and accept extraction. 🌱 Forming the program’s…

4-Year Reflection

The Amplify Fund started in 2017 with the intention of existing for four years. It became clear in 2021 that in order to be values-aligned, we needed to extend beyond the initial time horizon, so we decided to embark on a year of looking back and learning. Our reflections are organized in alignment with our…

Amplify Fund’s Updated Vision

Amplify Fund’s original vision focused on “a reality where Black, indigenous, people of color, and low-income people benefit from the changes caused by development, including wealth creation, land control, and quality of life outcomes.” While this original vision served us well, it was written in 2018 by funders and staff. In 2021, adhering to our…

Amplify Fund’s Updated Goals

In 2021, Amplify grantees wrote a new vision for the Fund, and updated our twin goals to fit that vision. However, the core of Amplify’s goals (to help build power in places, and to shift the field of philanthropy) remain the same. Below, you can find the latest articulation of our goals including the conditions…

Amplify Fund’s Updated Values

Amplify Fund has always been values-driven, having articulated a set of values alongside our first theory of change in 2018. In 2021, when we enlisted a committee of grantees to update our vision and goals, we also asked them to revisit and sharpen our values. Below is the latest list of values that guide Amplify…

2022 October Amplify Newsletter

Dear friends, Our commitment to deep, relational grantmaking means that, in addition to our long-term commitment to racial justice powerbuilding, we respond during crises of all kinds. Crises that affect 1) all our grantees partners, like COVID; 2) individual grantee partners; and 3) grantee partners in just one of our eight places as was the case…

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…

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 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…