You can’t have impact investing without impact. But what is the impact that we want to see when we make an investment? And how do we know if we are successful? Just like in grantmaking, impact investing requires a theory of change and a thoughtful framework for measurement.
Many foundations are exploring potential new programs in response to the pandemic, racial reckoning, and threats to our democracy, among many other challenges. This workshop will introduce a structured, efficient process that foundations can use to quickly learn ‘the lay of the land’ in potential new spaces and identify how they can complement – and learn from – the efforts of others as they seek to generate meaningful, measurable impact.
In response to the racial reckoning in 2020, foundations have sought many perspectives to learn how they can support racial justice, shift power, and more effectively engage communities in grantmaking decisions. Moving beyond the basic practices that many foundations are already incorporating, this workshop will examine how foundations can incorporate a racial equity perspective in their overall strategy setting and implementation planning at both the institutional level and the programmatic level.
Since Jan. 7, Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the U.S., has been burning. Entire neighborhoods have been decimated, and Altadena, a community in L.A. County with a rich history of Black homeownership, has seen massive destruction.
The Resourcing Resilience report, created in partnership between Philanthropy California and Nonprofit Finance Fund, provides a landscape analysis of public and philanthropic investments in climate resilience and serves as a call to action for both sectors to unlock pathways to more equitable, accessible funding. Philanthropic and government funders have important roles to play in addressing the real challenges communities face when securing funding for their work on climate adaptation, mitigation, and disaster resilience. Neither can achieve meaningful and equitable climate action alone, and community-led solutions require coordinated public and private support. The actions recommended in this report outline a path forward for ensuring communities are able to access funding they need.
As Philanthropy California, we join our partners in philanthropy, along with advocates and immigrant communities, in calling for an end to the practice of separating children from their parents as part of the Administration’s “zero tolerance” policy on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Defy: Disaster, a program of the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF), is the entertainment community's collective and immediate response to natural disasters.
The tax and spending legislation — released by bipartisan negotiators and passed by the House of Representatives this week — contains significant victories for private foundations and the nonprofit sector, which will allow more funding to be focused on meeting community needs.
To capitalize on the growing funder interest in Guaranteed Income, Asset Funders Network (AFN), Economic Security Project (ESP), Springboard to Opportunity and the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania co-produced a primer to highlight strategic investments funders can make to advance evidence-based GI solutions.
Mayor Michael Tubbs recently spoke with Philanthropy California in preparation for an upcoming Stockton Reinvention Tour for funders.
A trust-based culture—one that prioritizes power-sharing, dialogue, transparency, and learning—is essential to cultivating relationships of trust within organizations. Simply put, being a trust-based organization requires there to be trust within your organization—among staff, between staff and board, and between the board and the CEO. When this trust is broken, or if it is never built to begin with, it can seep into the external aspects of your work with the potential of threatening your relationships, credibility, and reputation.
Trust-based philanthropy encourages us to rethink our notions of traditional philanthropic roles, which tend to prioritize transactions over relationships. In fact, a trust-based approach encourages us to understand our roles as partners working in service of nonprofits and communities. Traditional Philanthropy has institutionalized and perpetuated harmful tropes about funders as experts and nonprofits as needy people who need to be held accountable. This has been perpetuated institutionally through our grantmaking practices, but also in less obvious ways, such as job descriptions, theories of change, program descriptions, and the language we use to describe our work.
Over the next 20 years in the U.S., $35–70 trillion in wealth will transfer from one generation to another in the largest generational wealth transfer in history, mostly moving within wealthy white families. The policies that make possible this protection and accumulation of wealth are situated within the legacy of land theft, genocide of Native people, enslavement of Black people, and exploitation of natural resources. This context of racial capitalism has also given rise to wealth accumulation that, in part, birthed the philanthropic sector. Paradoxically, many of us working within philanthropy aim to contribute to changes in systems, structures, and outcomes that address the harms of interconnected systems like racial capitalism that favor some at the expense of others and the planet.
The Resourcing Resilience report, created in partnership between Nonprofit Finance Fund and Philanthropy California, provides a landscape analysis of public and philanthropic investments in climate resilience and serves as a call to action for both sectors to unlock pathways to more equitable, accessible funding. Philanthropic and government funders have important roles to play in addressing the real challenges communities face when securing funding for their work on climate adaptation, mitigation, and disaster resilience. Neither can achieve meaningful and equitable climate action alone, and community-led solutions require coordinated public and private support. The actions recommended in this report outline a path forward for ensuring communities are able to access funding they need.
As we continue to learn more about the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action, there are many unanswered questions regarding the broad reach of this decision on higher education and other sectors. Join us to hear from education leaders who are learning and responding to this decision.
Who should attend?
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This program is created for foundation leaders who are new to an existing impact investing program at their foundations or are considering creating an impact investing program at their foundations.
Despite the Administration’s efforts to weaponize basic needs programs, the new public charge rule will not go unchallenged. Already legal challenges have been filed to prevent the rule from going into effect. Funders can play a critical role in protecting the health and well-being of immigrant families. We're sharing specific actions that funders should consider.
Over the next 20 years in the U.S., $35–70 trillion in wealth will transfer from one generation to another in the largest generational wealth transfer in history, mostly moving within wealthy white families.