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PEAK Grantmaking

Weekly Reads—March 18, 2022

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

“Few if any entities work at the neighborhood level to alter the fundamental social context that makes interventions inevitable in the first place and limits their effectiveness once undertaken. … Notable experiments are already underway. Some organizations are achieving remarkable change by focusing on transforming place first and foremost, rather than focusing on specific problems or goals in a siloed manner. … Instead, they pursue holistic place-based systems change. They seek to dismantle concentrated disadvantage by transforming the underlying socioeconomic context that low-income people inhabit.” [more]
Seth D. Caplan, Stanford Social Innovation Review

“Over the last two years, we have sought to change that pattern [of perpetuating issues funders seek to resolve] by deepening our understanding of how racial bias impacts the systems and communities where we work. Most significantly, we now prioritize funding community-based solutions led by people of color who center those who are most impacted by the issues we are trying to solve. In addition, while our grantmaking has traditionally employed an invitation-only approach, we recently introduced open invitations in our postsecondary success, food security, and serious illness care portfolios. This shift is helping us discover and fund organizations that are informed and led by the communities they serve. We recognize the power we have to be part of the solution to systemic racism, both in our own grantmaking and as a vocal advocate for change in the sector.” [more]
Malila Becton-Consuegra, Stupski Foundation, Chase Behringer, Silicon Valley Social Value, and Jennifer Nguyen, Stupski Foundation, writing for the Center for Effective Philanthropy

“Over the years, different equal pay days have been calculated for different industries and populations. In this blog, I examine equal pay day for CEOs and executive directors in the social sector. I followed the same methods used to calculate National Equal Pay Day but focused specifically on the total reportable compensation of the 46k women CEOs and 42k men CEOs included in Candid’s most recent Nonprofit Compensation Report. Results showed that the median compensation for women was $85k and the median compensation for men was $118k. In other words, women at the top of nonprofit organizations make about 72 cents for every dollar made by men. Or put another way: women leading nonprofits worked 102 days a year for free. This means that this year’s Equal Pay Day for nonprofit CEOs falls on May 24, 2022.” [more]
Cathleen Clerkin, Candid