Three Words and a Call to Action

This is the season of our fifth Principle: Learn, Share, Evolve. So it’s apt that we took inspiration from this Principle to reenvision the way we dive deeply into it. Rather than creating a suite of online resources, as we’ve done for our first four Principles, we offer this expanded edition of the Journal, delving into the many ways that this Principle can serve as an engine for transformation. I hope that these three words—and this call to action—inspire your journey to help transform grantmaking practices.

Our Own Case Study in Learning, Sharing, and Evolving

The five Principles began with a PEAK working group of staff and volunteers. Over several months back in 2018, I was part of the team that codeveloped the concepts that would become the Principles for Peak Grantmaking. Gathered across many rooms, a cadre of staff, board members, engaged champions, and thought leaders rolled up our sleeves with the intent to create a roadmap for values-based, equity-centered grantmaking practices. Many of us were inventors and lever-pullers at our own organizations, but we weren’t always seen or valued as the change agents we now know ourselves to be. Our formula for each Principle: a cup of lessons learned, a few tablespoons of best practices, and a few dashes of trend spotting. These were the learnings we shared, discussed, and used as a jumping-off point to envision the evolution we wanted to see in the sector.

Our list of Principles started out long. In time, we whittled the list down to the five most critical to the sector’s transformation. We unveiled them in 2019 with Courage in Practice, our white paper that, today, continues to be our most frequently accessed publication with more than 30,000 downloads to date—and 15,000 in the past year alone! The feedback we receive from member surveys and ongoing conversations confirm how deeply the Principles are valued. And as we approach the five-year mark of their launch, we’re excited to revisit the Principles, reflecting on what we’ve learned, what you’ve shared about their impact, and how they can best evolve to serve us going forward. For our team, the Principles are a North Star that guides our internal values and practices as well as the tools and resources we offer our community. At our 2023 retreat, it filled my heart to see PEAK’s board and staff working together on big, new ideas, aligning around ways to improve member experience, and grappling with how best to prioritize and pace for success.

In that same gathering, I shared the evolution in my own thinking that had started by shifting my focus from institutions to the individuals who power them: I don’t know if PEAK can truly change how an organization operates, but I do know that you can change your organization in ways big and small. My aspiration is for PEAK-inspired learnings to be an essential part of your career and knowledge toolkit, ready to use and share at every opportunity. We will focus on you, and know that the ripple effect you create will never truly end—reaching your team, your work colleagues and leaders, throughout your organization’s practices and processes, and onward to the sister- and partner-philanthropies you work with. Evolution is a beautiful thing, and it starts with us.

Evolution 27 Years in the Making

It’s also worth noting how much PEAK has evolved in its first two-and-a-half decades. At the time of our origin, as a small peer community gathering under an intermediary, just coming together was its own act of disruption. With no staff and little money, our founders and early champions endeavored to identify better ways of moving dollars into communities, to refine staffing structures for grants management teams, and to uplift the role and function we’ve devoted ourselves to.

As we grew in numbers, we began to disrupt status quo thinking by streamlining practices and opening space for higher-order concerns like relationship-building and innovation. Over time, we became a hub for grants management system vendors and user groups, testing new features and platforms. Our tent expanded in recognition of grants management as a collective endeavor requiring many competencies. We created safe spaces at diners, in chapter meetings, and in the hallways of our conferences. At the end of each meeting, we’d ask each other, “What did you learn that you’ll take back to your home institution?” And we kept the dialogue going by actively documenting and sharing how we each were championing change and progress in our CONNECT forums.

Over time, we learned that more efficient and effective ways of moving dollars could positively impact the interactions nonprofits and communities have with their funders, especially throughout the grant lifecycle. We learned that we might even be able to intentionally advance equity by embedding it in PEAK’s mission and approaches—without sacrificing the practical guidance we know members crave. Advancing equity and improving grant practices are complementary, and we must be unified in challenging the community to act on anything that helps advance racial equity.

We have evolved from a meeting and conference presenter to a convener focused on the experience we want members, friends, staff, and engaged champions to have whenever we are together—whether in small peer community settings or at PEAK’s annual convening. Now, we are engaging in more multi-directional conversations, living our Principle to learn, share, and evolve with each opportunity to come together in community.

The Path Ahead

The path ahead for PEAK will be shaped by our staff, our board, and each one of you. To stand in solidarity around our highest values—that grantmaking practices can and should elevate and advance equity—we must commit time and effort to the learning that is required. We must be clear in stating, pursuing, and sharing our ideals as we continue to iterate and grow toward them. And we must remember that learning is not always a path forward, but can instead be an opening up of new directions where the things we know well fall away with each passing step and a landscape transformed by our convictions rises to meet us. Learn. Share. Evolve. Three words and a call to action. Can you hear it? Let’s go!

Image: Satonya Fair delivers her opening address at PEAK2023. Photo by Greg Smith.