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Many leaders in our field, perhaps a majority, understand that for too long, philanthropy has operated in a top-down, hierarchical mode, isolated from the people and communities impacted by our decisions. We have privileged voices and perspectives of the wealthy and...
“The power in this approach is that we get to pick our own champions.” Billy Kinney, one of the Native members of Fund for Shared Insight’s participatory grantmaking group for the “Kolea region” — an area encompassing Alaska and Hawai’i and named for a bird that...
A colleague recently asked me how much has changed since I wrote “The Dance of Deceit,” a 2004 Stanford Social Innovation Review article in which I reflected on my seven years as managing director of REDF and the power imbalances I observed and experienced. In the...
Last month, I had the privilege of speaking on a webinar hosted by the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) to discuss its recent research report, Funder Support During the COVID-19 Pandemic. As I’ve reflected on the comments of my co-speakers, Chitra Hanstad from...
As COVID-19’s rapid spread has wreaked havoc on our sector, more than 550 foundations (at the time of writing) have signed a pledge to support our nonprofit partners and the people and communities hardest hit by the pandemic and associated economic impacts. The pledge...
In July 2014, a small group of funders came together to form Fund for Shared Insight, a collaborative focused on promoting listening and feedback to elevate the voices of those least heard in our field: the beneficiaries of nonprofit programs and services. We wanted...
At Fund for Shared Insight, the funder collaborative I have the privilege of managing, our mission is to help foundations and nonprofits meaningfully connect with each other and with the people and communities they seek to help — and be more open to their input and...
What words should we use to describe the clients served by nonprofits? Participants in nonprofit programs? Recipients of nonprofit services? End beneficiaries of philanthropy? Partners? Constituents? Citizens? The list of...
“When they hear my voice, it’s power,” declared Paula Jones, a participant at ECHOS, a Houston-based health, social, and educational resource organization. Paula was talking about the power of feedback during a plenary session at the 2018 Shared Insight Gathering in...
“Philanthropy can be more effective by getting more proximate to problems,” said Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) Founder and Executive Director Bryan Stevenson in his opening plenary at the 2017 CEP Conference in Boston earlier this month. “Being proximate can have an...
It may be the time of year for resolutions, but, to start, I have a confession: openness is tough. In my role as project manager for Fund for Shared Insight (“Shared Insight”), a collaborative effort among funders to make grants that improve philanthropy, I think a...
Our tagline at Fund for Shared Insight is “Philanthropy. Open for improvement.”* Founded in July 2014, Fund for Shared Insight (“Shared Insight”) is a funder collaborative working to improve philanthropy by increasing foundation openness. We are betting that if...
How can we as funders do a better job of hearing from the people we seek to help? How can listening to our beneficiaries help us be more effective funders? We are looking forward to engaging CEP conference participants in answering these questions during our breakout...