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PEAK Grantmaking

Braving the COVID-19 Crisis Together

It’s been a wild week for all of us as we adjust to a new reality in our work and lives. We’ve been focused on ensuring the safety of our team, running financial projections, adjusting our workplans, and considering how we can best provide the support and connection that our members need most in this moment.

Our team was among the first to stare down the prospect of the serious health and financial implications of COVID-19 when we canceled our conference in Seattle earlier this month. At the moment we did it, we held our breaths, trusting that we had made the right choice by focusing wholly on health and safety.

We are now facing the unavoidable financial consequences of that decision. We’re incredibly grateful for the outpouring of support from our community over the past two weeks. Our thanks go out to the many PEAK2020 registrants who were able to forgo a refund, to those joining as new Organization Members, and to the generous funders who have offered grants to help us emerge on stable financial footing. Our day was made when one of our members reached out to say, “I’m processing a general operating support grant for you. Just send me your bank wire info!”

In our moment of need, the PEAK community is shining bright: Streamlining, trust-based philanthropy, partnership, and responsiveness at its best!

As the calls for more responsive and streamlined philanthropy grow around the COVID-19 crisis, our members – grants management professionals – will be leading organizational efforts to adapt grantmaking processes, procedures, technology, and communications.

As the calls for more responsive and streamlined philanthropy grow around the COVID-19 crisis, our members – grants management professionals – will be leading organizational efforts to adapt grantmaking processes, procedures, technology, and communications.

Today, we wanted to share what we are planning to do to support our community in the weeks and months ahead, as we all pull together to navigate this crisis.

  • Already, our members are reaching out to each other via our online community, CONNECT, to share ideas and templates, ask for advice, and help each other through this time. We encourage you to join them, and we have just launched a COVID-19 hub in CONNECT where we’ll be curating related discussion threads that share great ideas and innovative approaches.
  • Next Wednesday, March 25, we’re hosting a virtual community conversation. Register now to hear about progress and share ideas about how grants management peers can respond to grantee needs.
  • We’re supporting our chapter leaders as they transition to virtual gatherings by providing Zoom access and training, virtual meeting tips, and additional support.
  • We’ll shortly be launching a COVID-19 resource page that provides updates and rounds up timely resources and virtual events.
  • In early April, we’ll be releasing our complete 2020 schedule for virtual learning. This includes a month-long PEAK2020 conference experience, a two-part series around our Journal theme: Black Voices in Grants Management, regular webinars, discussion-based virtual meetings and learning series, and additional online programming.
  • We’re uniting with our philanthropy-serving organization peers in our commitment to help philanthropy respond effectively to the crisis. Today, PEAK signed on to a joint statement calling on everyone in philanthropy to do all that you can to ensure that our communities and our country address the coronavirus outbreak in ways that are as equitable and fair as possible.
  • We are also well prepared for supporting our partners and the sector more broadly, readily switching from onsite to online meeting formats so that we can continue to support grantmakers across the country as they rally to meet the need for more equitable and responsive grantmaking.
  • Our programs team is dedicated to helping our members with additional technical assistance. Reach out to us at principles@peakgrantmaking.org if you have a request or an inquiry!

As you develop plans to support grantees through this crisis, consider how you can put the Principles for Peak Grantmaking into practice: Tie your practices to your values; narrow the power gap; drive equity; learn, share, and evolve; and steward responsively. Our most recent suite of resources, Narrow the Power Gap, highlights all the ways you can be more open and responsive with your grantees, use technology to support rather than replace relationships, implement more flexible practices, and restructure grant agreements to respond to this moment. Start with our Action Planner.

While uncertainty abounds, our team holds true to PEAK Grantmaking’s values – Community; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Integrity; Learning; Partnership; and Transparency. We are embracing adaptability, flexibility, and forgiveness. And we are dedicated to supporting you as you adapt your grantmaking practices to meet this challenge, while adjusting to the many changes in our work and lives.

Stay safe, all!

The PEAK Grantmaking Staff
Akeem, Altinay, Betsy, Carolyn, Clare, Dolores, Elly, Liz, Melissa, Sara