A consortium of five northwest state nonprofit associations has released a comprehensive study on the capacity, strengths, and challenges of the region’s nonprofit sector. The 2016 Northwest Nonprofit Capacity Report: Our Strengths — Our Challenges — Our Resilience, developed using survey data from more than 1,000 nonprofits in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington, highlights the progress nonprofits are making in creating a resilient sector.
Bank of America has announced $329,150 in grants across 25 nonprofits working to increase educational and workforce development opportunities in the Portland, Oregon community. These grants are part of the bank’s broader philanthropic commitment to helping individuals and families improve their economic stability.
In the past few months, I have been traveling around the country, speaking with different funders and nonprofit professionals and, when possible, collecting free pens from conference exhibitors for my nonprofit in Seattle, Rainier Valley Corps. Through all the traveling and conversations, I’ve noticed a few differences between Pacific Northwest funders and other funders — some of which are exciting, while others are worrisome. These are all observations from my own perspective, with little formal data behind them and thus subject to biases influenced by the people I’ve talked to and worked with. Please feel free to disagree and push back. I am hoping by discussing what makes Northwest philanthropy unique, we can focus on building on our strengths, minimizing our weaknesses and allowing nonprofits and funders to more effectively reach our goals of building a stronger community.
What comes after “strategic...?” If you said, “planning,” you’re not alone. And for many foundation leaders, especially small ones who don’t have the time or money for a big process, anxiety is the feeling that follows. If that’s the case, this guide is for you.
Philanthropy Northwest seeks a chief executive officer to work closely with the board, staff and key stakeholders to advance our mission, provide strategic leadership, ensure the development and delivery of innovative member programs, refine and revisit our business model, and integrate various activities of our organization to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
At Community Democracy Workshop, we work with residents to put them in more powerful positions to help change their communities. With institutional stakeholders, this community democracy approach might be unsettling, but we have to help them feel comfortable about walking into a process that potentially is confrontational. We must concentrate on making space around the table safe. Not false or phony, but safe. Residents and representatives from institutions will need to be honest and frank with each other and address real issues, but in a productive manner. We must use our influence and role to help create that kind of environment so that our communities can have the power and capacity to see the changes they want to see.
One of the best things about working at Philanthropy Northwest is learning and experiencing all the awesome things our members doing in our communities. This includes working with the Washington Statewide Capacity Collaborative (SCC), a philanthropy partnership "to invest, align and pool resources to build the capacity of the nonprofit ecosystem.” Based on the results of SCC's Washington State Leadership Scan, a margins-to-center approach to learning more about the capacity-building needs of our nonprofit sector, this group of funders has begun convening learning circles to discuss challenges and opportunities in more depth. We began in Walla Walla, Washington earlier this month and will continue exploring this topic at our conference in Missoula, Montana next month.