Celebrating Our First 25 Years, Looking Ahead to Our Next Chapter
Celebrating Our First 25 Years
At our 2021 annual meeting, members joined the PEAK board and staff for a look back at 2020—and across our first 25 years—to kick off our anniversary celebration. Through conversations with founding members and leaders, we reflected on the journeys of grants professionals, the birth and growth of a profession, our pursuit of equity, and how the PEAK network has supported and nurtured its evolution and impact on philanthropy.
And we’re just getting started: Look out for our announcements and updates of plans to bring the PEAK community together for special events and ways you can participate in co-creating our anniversary experience!
Explore our 25-year history. A new section of the PEAK website celebrates milestones, challenges, and achievements through videos, stories, and a historical timeline. Look for email announcements on the latest features.
Share your PEAK memories with us. Visit our new Story Center, which offers options to record a short selfie video, send us a favorite image, or contribute a personal story.
Mark your calendar for two special online events. On September 14, we’ll host a panel conversation on grants management professionals as change agents for equitable practices; and on December 2, join us for a big celebration of our community and help launch us into the next chapter for PEAK and philanthropy.
Click here to explore stories from PEAK’s first 25 years and to share stories of your own.
Thank you to our 25th Anniversary Committee for your leadership!
Genise Singleton, Co-Chair
The Kresge Foundation
Rebecca Van Sickle, Co-Chair
1892 consulting
Jamie Amagai
The Summit Charitable Foundation
Jennifer Burran
The Lemelson Foundation
Deb Debbaut
Iowa West Foundation
Jina Freiberg
Public Welfare Foundation
Dan Gaff
May & Stanley Smith Charitable Trust
Nancy Herzog
National Endowment for Democracy
Roland Kennedy, Jr.
Bloomberg Philanthropies
Adam Liebling
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Adin Miller
Los Altos Community Foundation
Frank Rybak
Formerly of Missouri Foundation for Health
Ursula Stewart
Salesforce.org
PEAK’s Next Chapter
This April, President and CEO Satonya Fair unveiled plans to carry PEAK forward, drawing on the wisdom we’ve gained to envision our future and chart a way there. At the heart of our plans is the wisdom of this West African proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
Here are some of the high points—and click here to explore further.
Our refreshed vision, mission, and purpose now clearly and boldly convey what PEAK needs to be, better supporting both who we have become and where we are going.
Vision: Realizing the full potential of philanthropy to drive equity and opportunity.
Mission: Transforming philanthropy by elevating the field of grants management and empowering grants professionals to lead the way in operationalizing equity-centered, values-driven grantmaking practices.
Purpose: We believe in principled grantmaking practices that align funders and nonprofits as equal partners in advancing their respective missions and strategic objectives. Narrowing the power gap and ensuring that funders live their values through their grantmaking practices will result in positive change for the causes and solutions we seek to collectively advance.
A new strategic framework with four anchors defines our goals and will guide our work in the years ahead.
From Grants Management Professional to Change Agent for Equitable Practices: Our members stand at a critical nexus point within philanthropic institutions, poised to lead change within their organizations and for the field. We will support and empower our expanding network in raising their voices as change-management practitioners to influence shifts in grantmaking practices.
Emergent Learning Community as Core Philosophy: Our peer networking structure positions us well to create an emergent learning community around our Principles work—shifting from a traditional, linear learning environment toward a more adaptive learning process that is continuously evolving based on the complexity of the issue and the experience of participants.
New Models for Growth and Sustainability: We will develop new revenue development models that expand organizational memberships in key areas and ensure that large-asset institutions are gaining value through membership. A new, customized member-services model will allow us to more deeply engage with members who are ready to build and embed equity into their operations.
Strategic Partnerships Extend Reach and Influence: We will accelerate and advance learning, demonstrate thoughtful alignments and collaborative thought leadership, and center our grants community as change leaders for the sector.
We (re)defined what PEAK stands for.
Our “P” is Principles, as the guiding force behind grantmaking practices becoming more equitable. Our “E” is for Equity, which lies behind all that we do and all that we are trying to advance. Our “A” is Advocacy, for the work PEAK does advocating for our people, grants management, and the sector. And finally, our “K” is Knowledge, affirming our dedication to learning and sharing through programs, resources, networking, and insights that support our members in building the skills for both their role and their career.Our evolved visual identity captures the spirit of our next chapter.
To keep PEAK’s visual identity in step with our bold aspirations for philanthropy, and our members’ role as change leaders for the sector, we’ve transformed our “mark” from triangle to peak—conveying both progress and potential—and refreshed the typography.
Meet the Author
PEAK Grantmaking