Building Community Philanthropy

We’re on a learning journey toward more equitable and effective philanthropy.

Through the Building Community Philanthropy (BCP) initiative, we are creating a vibrant, community-driven ecosystem for nonprofits and communities to thrive. BCP brings together 21 partners across Washington and Portland, Oregon to promote equitable philanthropy and support community-led solutions. What began in 2012 as a conceptual idea, has blossomed into a connected network of community foundations, identity-based grantmakers and United Ways that are learning and working collaboratively to tackle common community challenges.

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How It Works

BCP partners meet to explore key issues, such as racial-equity, trust-building, amplifying community voices, supporting collective action and funding community-defined priorities. Through these experiences, BCP partners gain knowledge and skills to engage communities in authentic ways and center their voices and experiences. The Washington BCP initiative is a partnership of Philanthropy Northwest and The Giving Practice, and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

What We’re Learning

Since the initiative launched, BCP partners and community members have reported positive changes. Some of the impacts include:

Funders have a shared language and a theory of action around DEI and are working together to advance equitable practices and policies.

“We are looking at different power-sharing models. Most models focus on programmatic allotment of grant awards. We are taking it one step further and looking at how to share power about our overall grantmaking strategy and shifting towards that.” - BCP Participant

BCP partners are shifting traditional funder-grantee power dynamics in ways that embolden community members around their own power and voice.

“We offered funding for organizational support grants for grassroots organizations in early learning. Instead of making the decisions ourselves, we invited community leaders — people who are directly affected by the issues — to determine the grant awards. That was new for us and very exciting.” - BCP Participant

Comprehensive community conversations, coupled with funders’ increased understanding of systemic issues, has led to better community planning and more community-defined priorities.

“If we were to rewind five years ago, we weren’t doing community work and not sure we would be today if not for the learning cohort. The community engagement and capacity-building support really influenced us, and we’ve learned and changed. We have so many more and new relationships and without BCP, we would still be more insular. BCP built our capacity and what we’ve learned from BCP, we can apply externally.” - BCP Participant

BCP partners are pursuing joint advocacy efforts to amplify community voices with elected officials, and to further community-led solutions.
Corporate, government and private funders are aligned around and investing in BCP partners and community-defined priority areas.

Go deeper and read our report about the first eight years of the BCP initiative focused on centering community for better philanthropy across Washington state. We're grateful to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for supporting this work.

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