Weekly Reads – October 16, 2020

A roundup of timely insight from the grantmaking community and beyond.

Building Movement Project’s latest report, On the Frontlines: Nonprofits Led by People of Color Confront COVID-19 and Structural Racism, shines a spotlight on how 2020’s social upheavals are affecting people of color-led (POC) nonprofit organizations and their communities, programs, leadership, and financial sustainability. [more]

“Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Be willing to challenge the age-old interpretation of your mission and embrace intersectionality in programmatic approaches. Look beyond regular partners with cyclical programs, defined timelines, and guaranteed outputs and put an eye towards the not-yet-known. The rewards can be momentous.” [more]
– Patricia McIlreavy, Center for Disaster Philanthropy, on Center for Effective Philanthropy

“Nonprofits that serve communities of color struggle to survive because of systemic racial disparities and biases. To surmount these challenges, we recommend seven approaches that have emerged from our work with these communities.” [more]
– April Nishimura, Roshni Sampath, Vu Le, Anbar Mahar Sheikh & Ananda Valenzuela, RVC, in Stanford Social Innovation Review