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PEAK Grantmaking

Weekly Reads—July 1, 2022

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Enjoy PEAK’s weekly roundup of timely insights from the grantmaking community and beyond.

“One of the things that we don’t talk enough about is how philanthropy trains us to be afraid. It trains us to always be in this kind of state of anxiety about whether or not we are going to survive. Reliability allows for some exhale and some clarity on what’s possible. It generates more possibility for the organizations and for the funders.” [more]
Sage Crump, National Performance Network, for GEO

“Many of the fundraisers I know are like me — people who got involved in the development profession out of a love of doing good and a desire to support the missions of organizations we care about. We are not always wealthy and don’t always come from family money. This creates a tension as we navigate spaces of wealth and interface every day with philanthropists who may have very different class backgrounds than ourselves. … How do we honor and uplift our lived experiences of socioeconomic class, and turn them into a source of strength to become fearless fundraisers?” [more]
Christa Orth for Community-Centric Fundraising

“[A] key reason the starvation cycle has not been resolved is that it does not affect all nonprofits equally. Foundation board members and executives … tend to be directly affiliated with larger nonprofit organizations. Because big nonprofits have low indirect cost rates and often raise significant unrestricted revenue, in privileged circles the pain of the starvation cycle can feel like a problem that isn’t real.” [more]
Rodney Christopher, BDO FMA, for Center for Effective Philanthropy

“Without deliberately shifting the power that comes with Meyer’s resources, platform and prominence from the foundation to our community, we would be impeding justice, rather than accelerating it. … In concrete terms, that means things like shifting to multi-year, flexible, operating grants; streamlined applications and reporting; and a commitment to building non-extractive funding relationships that are grounded in dignity, mutuality and curiosity.” [more]
Kaberi Banerjee Murthy, Meyer Memorial Trust