Across five breakout time slots, we’ll host 50 sessions following one of our five tracks: Change Agent, Learning Lab, Transformative Funding Strategies, Harnessing Data and Technology, and Professional Growth and Wellness. Open fishbowls, workshops, world cafés, and spark talks will inspire curiosity and engage attendees in sharing insights and experiences.
Join your colleagues at this in-depth fishbowl discussion on transforming the conversation around grantee capacity building. You’ll hear different perspectives and strategies from family, community, and corporate foundations with both regional and national grantmaking presences. Finally, attendees will be invited to share their experiences with capacity building and empowering nonprofits so we can all learn, share, and evolve with each other.
Speakers
Jenna Beltrano, Evanston Community Foundation
Deborah Clark, Woods Fund Chicago
Tara Havlicek, Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation
In this session, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and their philanthropy consultant partner Grantbook will share highlights from the Packard Foundation’s journey to reexamine grantmaking practices through a lens of improving grantee experiences and staff effectiveness. Building on a streamlined approach that the Packard Foundation put into place in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Packard Foundation updated longstanding processes to incorporate best practices and strengthen funder-grantee partnerships. Eighteen months after rolling out the changes, will share the overall approach taken, challenges encountered, and key outcomes of their GMS reimplementation they coined “Grantsformation.”
Learn about the Packard Foundation’s approach to making key shifts in processes, technology, data collection, and training including: streamlining the proposal process; reducing reporting burdens by shifting to a more relationship-centric approach; and building grantees’ financial resilience.
Speakers
Linda Gargiulo, David and Lucile Packard Foundation
Tierney Smith, Grantbook
Rhea Vaz, Grantbook
Software is an expensive investment in time and money—which is why you need to be sure you are using your organization’s resources wisely. Whether you are planning to adopt new software soon or in the future, learn about the steps needed in order to select software that will best meet your organization’s needs. In this interactive session, learn to form a team, develop goals, update processes, gather requirements, and assess vendors. In addition, you’ll have an opportunity to share your ideas and experiences.
Speaker
Lisa M Nespeca, ChangeVantage Consulting
So your organization has embraced trust-based philanthropy and is working to introduce equitable practices into your grantmaking. Great! But new practices can lead to unanticipated consequences – you could have difficulty finding strategies that work for your specific context and you might face resistance from your board or program staff in moving forward. In this interactive session, join your PEAK peers to learn about how they are implementing trust-based and equitable practices and navigating the challenges and unexpected impacts. And together, look to the future of what it means to shift power in philanthropy. While all are welcome to attend, this session is geared toward those already implementing trust-based and equitable practices.
Speakers
Denise Mishiwiec, WomenStrong International
Shei Sanchez, Sisters Health Foundation
Traci Johnson, The Pittsburgh Foundation
Marissa Crawford, The New York Women’s Foundation
Data can be a powerful catalyst for change both within your organization and among your grant partners. This workshop explores how storytelling practices can transform mundane data into compelling narratives, engaging both your team and your partners. Are you struggling to make sense of data buried in spreadsheets or dashboards? Is it hard to get your colleagues, board members and partners excited about the stories behind the numbers? Learn how storytelling with data can shift your organization’s culture from one of compliance to one of continuous learning. Discover strategies to turn data into engaging dialogues, equipping your organization and its partners with the skills to communicate impact effectively.
Speaker
Jennifer Marsack, Pivot Data Design
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the world, including grants management. AI has the potential to revolutionize the way we work, but it is important to use AI responsibly and ethically. This session will explore the opportunities and pitfalls of using AI in grantmaking via a panel conversation. It will include guiding practices you can use immediately, ideas for leveraging generative AI, interesting AI lightning demos, opportunities to learn from your peers, as well as a Q&A to have your burning questions answered.
Speakers
Sam Caplan, Submittable
Richelle Pittella, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
Kyle Renninger, PEAK Grantmaking
Jean Westrick, Technology Association of Grantmakers
Join this conversation to learn about how you can advocate for yourself and your department using data. Using a case study from the Heising-Simons Foundation, attendees will hear from a grants management director along with two talent and people leads from the philanthropic sector who will discuss how you utilize resources and relationships to build your case. You’ll also get a sneak peek at key findings from PEAK’s 2023 Grants Management Salary Report, which will be released later this year.
Speakers
Dolores Estrada, PEAK Grantmaking
Kelly Hayashi, Heising-Simons Foundation
Karina Rivera, The Heising-Simons Foundation
This dynamic session invites leaders to explore pathways for both professional and personal growth. Participants will delve into frameworks, conduct a personal inventory of their leadership identity traits, and reflect on their desired career evolution. The session underscores the power of leveraging skills, strengths, and life experiences to create meaningful impacts within and beyond the organization. You’ll also gain valuable insights into building supportive accountability systems and using LinkedIn and real-time strategies. The conversation will particularly address challenges faced by historically marginalized groups and promote an inclusive, interactive learning environment with ample time for participants to engage with one another and ask questions.
Speaker
Jackie Hanselmann Sergi, Radical Spark Coaching
Philanthropy often calls on nonprofits to collaborate to increase community impact but rarely does philanthropy take its own advice. How can a foundation move from working in independent, siloed work roles to acting as a collaborative and integrated team? The answer is to move the focus from the organization to center grantees and communities. Join four members of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund to hear their stories of how they moved from isolated programmatic, operational, and administrative functions to growing authentic collaborative muscles that empowered everyone to meaningfully contribute to projects across the organization. They will share three case studies where they worked across functions, centered community, and fostered inclusive practices and equitable grantmaking.
Speaker
Anna Hernandez, Walter & Elise Haas Fund
Marcel Marania, Walter and Elise Haas Fund
Suki O’Kane, Walter and Elise Haas Fund
Natalia Vigil, Water and Elise Haas Fund
As grantmakers look to support their grantees in the most effective ways possible, understanding a nonprofit’s financial health is key to ensuring grants and other assistance are structured to promote resilience now and into the future. This two-part series will begin March 18 with part one teaching participants how to identify key financial metrics that shed light on an organization’s liquidity, reserves, and ability to withstand challenges.
Join us for part two on March 19 where we will explore designing a less burdensome financial review process, how to use publicly available data to analyze trends, and reimagine what the financial due diligence process looks like within their organization.
If you do not already have a basic understanding of nonprofit financial health, it is highly recommended that you attend this session in order to fully participate in the second session.
Speakers
Jennifer Pedroni, BDO USA
Megan Morrison, BDO USA
Hilda Polanco, BDO USA
Connie Kendig, BDO USA
Across the philanthropic sector, grants management, knowledge management, and similar functions have become increasingly central to foundations’ efforts to become true learning organizations. Building on recent PEAK research on knowledge work in philanthropy, this highly interactive session will delve into the rapidly evolving intersections between these functions, different ways they are structured and positioned within organizational structures, their role in elevating critical strategic data and insights, and how knowledge management and grants management can effectively work together to advance foundations’ work.
Speakers
Ari Kramer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Sarah Small, Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies
Donita Volkwijn, Philanthropy New York
To achieve gender, racial, and economic justice, many members of the community need to be at the table – equity will not be realized by funding just one organization. Within partnerships, trust must be built between funders and grantees to move work forward together. Through the support and partnership of Fondation Chanel, The New York Women’s Foundation and the Women’s Foundation California brought together cohorts of community-based organizations with the goal of achieving economic justice for women and gender expansive people of color. The cohort model creates a collaborative space for grantee partners to share ideas and expertise, facilitate joint projects in the community and develop leadership skills, while creating a feedback loop for funders to develop grantmaking strategies. This session will explore the benefits of working with cohorts for funders and grantee partners, describe the process of building trust , and the opportunities for funders to use this approach.
Speakers
Raymond Ampil, Fondation CHANEL
Cecilia Cortes Vila, New York Women’s Foundation
Marissa Crawford, The New York Women’s Foundation
Jane Lin, Women’s Foundation of California
Inatai Foundation is a 501(c)(4) organization seeking to transform the balance of power to ensure equity and racial justice across Washington state and beyond. Since Inatai started grantmaking in 2019, they have committed over $250 million to hundreds of organizations, and in 2022, they awarded over $2.9 million to sovereign nations and their related entities and projects. In 2023, strategic updates led to the creation of the Fund for Sovereign Nations and an increased interest in data related to this area of grantmaking. Working together with program officers, leadership, and Native colleagues, Inatai implemented several changes to refine this aspect of their data collection and analysis. In this session, Inatai will discuss their changes and lessons learned to help you engage in grantmaking to sovereign nations.
Speakers
Adelina Solís, Inatai Foundation
Sewheat Asfaha, Inatai Foundation
What do we really mean when we talk about deeply engaging with nonprofits and communities? The field of philanthropy has a lot of different terms for this practice from stakeholder engagement to participatory philanthropy, to grantee inclusion. Historically, GEO has talked about this as strengthening relationships, but now we use the term community-driven philanthropy. In this session, GEO will offer a spectrum tool to anchor group work and ideation to bring participants’ lived experiences into the discussion. This tool will allow participants to locate their commitments to community across a spectrum of power sharing. In addition, you’ll see examples of power sharing moving from input, consulting, and collaborating and moving your practices toward delegating, community ownership, and transformational practices. This session will empower participants to reimagine their relationships with community members within their grantmaking practices.
Speakers
Mareeha Niaz, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations
Jaser Alsharhan, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations
Steph Schilling
The needs of grantees and the people they serve often evolve during the life of the grant. Grantees may want to update deliverables, extend the grant term, or even revise grant purposes. Grantmakers dedicated to systemic change and equity-driven grantmaking should be ready to meet these changing needs by providing accessible and strategic amendment processes. Offering such processes is a crucial part of reducing the funder-grantee power imbalance. Amendments enable grantees to accomplish critical work and help build trust-based partnerships. Clear and strategic amendment processes also prepare grantmakers to address operational and legal challenges. In this spark talk, participants will be taken through amendment fundamentals, address common issues within amendment processes, describe routine and creative options for changing grant purposes, and recommend best practices for amendment systems.
Speakers
Liz Silberstein, The Build Up Companies
Camille Morris, The Build Up Companies
If philanthropy is going to truly fight for equity and social justice, it needs to embed disability inclusion into its internal and external practices. According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in four people in the US have a disability. Globally, approximately 15 percent of the human population has a disability. However, these numbers are heavily underreported due to stigmas, taboos, and workplace discrimination. This highly interactive workshop will help participants to embark on their disability inclusion journey. Through activities, media, and open discussion, participants will get the opportunity to dive deep into how ableism shows up within the field and learn various ways to challenge it. Participants will also learn how to define key disability concepts and leave with practical tools to begin, continue, or take this work to the next level.
Speaker
Sarah Napoli, Disability & Philanthropy Forum
As grants professionals, we may be inclined to limit our creativity and self-expression to prioritize due diligence and compliance. How do we embrace our whole selves, including our values and imagination, to transform the processes and systems we create to evolve the sector? Given our positionality, can we break down barriers and silos which currently stifle potentially transformative relationships between ourselves, our colleagues and the communities we serve? This session is an invitation to explore the connective possibilities in grants management by weaving values, stories, and imaginative creativity to closer align to our work. Through guided roundtable discussions, we’ll identify resonant personal values, approaches, and aspirations that inspire our work and shape how we show up and redefine our roles; discuss successes, failures and learnings, gathered from innovative attempts to foster authentic and effective collaboration within our institutions and with grantees; and uplift tactical approaches unearthed in our roles, as well our lives, to de-silo our workplaces and transform the field of philanthropy.
Speakers
Danielle Royston-Lopez, Kataly Foundation
Lilia Granillo, The Libra Foundation
Jennifer Herrera, The Libra Foundation
As a grants manager or someone who helps manage grants across a small organization, it’s necessary to be able to navigate fast-paced and complex work with your manager, team, and organizational leadership to advocate for equity and move your work forward. The ability to manage up looks different in every organization, for every role, and at every phase of your career. In this interactive workshop, you’ll learn about different approaches to managing up, practice managing up through prepared scenarios, and have a chance to share your own stories of working with philanthropic leadership.
Speaker
Elyse Gordon, Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy
For the longest time, the metaphysical, cosmic power of the Force in the Star Wars universe seemed predestined for the select, special few. Similarly, philanthropy’s capacity to support, engage, and interact with grantees has long been the domain of its executive and program folk. But times change. In the same way that the canonical story has shifted so that the Force is less a birthright and more a democratized, flows-through-us-all ability, a growing number of foundations are stepping into their capacity to unleash the full power, promise, and potential of their teams in service of grantees. Come hear the stories of, interact with, and share your own experiences with colleagues who’ve made the leap of moving from transaction to transformation by using their talent and skill—their Force—to support grantees beyond the grant.
Speakers
Dr. Charles Cole, III, Energy Convertors
Cynthia Suter, Rogers Family Foundation
Dana Wellhausen, Fremont Group
Jane Lee, Agency by Design Oakland
Kate Ray, Heising Simons Foundation
Rhonnel Sotelo, Rogers Family Foundation
America’s legislative history has both intentionally and unintentionally impacted Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color in negative ways that have exacerbated disparities for generations. Over the course of the past decade, philanthropy’s involvement in public policy has evolved, and philanthropy-supporting organizations and their foundation members are now, more than ever, uniquely positioned to address systemic inequities by being active participants in the advocacy process. This session aims to explore and advocate for a transformative approach in philanthropy by emphasizing the critical role of advocacy in achieving systemic change and racial equity, with philanthropy marrying their investments and grantmaking with meaningful engagement aimed at dismantling systemic inequities and building healthy, vibrant, and equitable communities.
Speakers
Matthew Evans, United Philanthropy Forum
Meredith Higashi, Philanthropy Northwest
What does transformational and systems change look like in action? In 2023, Candid introduced Demographics via Candid to encourage efficiency in nonprofit demographic data collection and sharing through its nonprofit profiles. Through this initiative, Candid freely provides nonprofit demographic data to make the granting process quicker, easier, and more efficient. One year later, we invite you to an honest conversation about what this change looks like for a nonprofit, a funder, a grant management system vendor, and the social sector at large. Demographics via Candid is only the beginning. Let’s reimagine data collaboration at scale together.
Speakers
Aleda Gagarin, Candid
Kerrin Mitchell, Fluxx
Ellen Dickenson, United Way of Massachusetts Bay
Jeffrey Jimenez-Kurlander, Surdna Foundation
Participatory grantmaking is critical to shaping investments in our communities. The Innovative Stable Housing Initiative (ISHI) is a project that leverages multiyear, pooled funding to identify, assess, and fund strategic approaches to increase housing security in Greater Boston through a resident-led process. Facilitated by Health Resources in Action, ISHI brings together anchor institutions, such as hospitals, to align funding and investments in affordable housing solutions that improve patient health, while uplifting marginalized and excluded voices. In this session the speakers will share ISHI’s value-centered model; share practices that shift power dynamics between grantmakers and community members; discuss key challenges and successes of implementing a community-led participatory process; and rethink traditional grantmaking to create lasting systemic impact in topic areas beyond health and housing.
Speakers
Edward Alexander, Health Resources in Action
Jamiah Tappin, Health Resources in Action
Corporations and nonprofits alike are required to have a board of directors in place to provide comprehensive support and strategic guidance to the organization. But have you ever thought about developing your own personal board? During this highly interactive workshop, participants will engage in an exercise to identify the various dimensions they may want to consider and how to thoughtfully curate their network to move toward their personal and professional goals.
Speakers
Abigail Osei, The Starr Foundation
Adam Liebling, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
Rachel Kimber, International NGO
Marissa Lifshen Steinberger, One Eleven Leadership
Grants management (GM) professionals often sit at the nexus of their organizations, collaborating with departments such as programs, finance, and learning and evaluation, and supporting their efforts through data management and analysis, process management, and training. This broad lens uniquely positions GM professionals to serve as effective partners in strategic decision making. Using a case study approach, this interactive session will examine specific examples of partnership between the Hilton Foundation’s GM and Strategy, Learning and Evaluation departments. The discussion will highlight how Hilton has used data analysis to improve training, reflect on its processes, and implement values-aligned grantmaking practices. Whether your foundation has two distinct departments, or a GM staff of one, this session will demonstrate concrete ways to effectively partner in your organization.
Speakers
Allison Gister, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
Shani Carter McKinney, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
As institutions work to narrow power gaps, how do they ensure their culture and practices reflect the values of the communities they come from and partner with? In this session, take a deep dive into the myriad traditions and perspectives on giving and reciprocity that could be centered in philanthropy. To move beyond philanthropy’s history of extractive practices, we will explore how to cultivate spaces in which we can show up as our whole selves and relate to one another in ways that are authentic to us. As a result, immigrant and Black, Indigenous, and people-of-color staff can have a greater sense of inclusion and belonging that can help to push the possibilities of philanthropy.
Speakers
Jennelyn Bailon, Center for Cultural Innovation
Schuyler Marquez, Mellon Foundation
Join Seeding Justice for a panel conversation on alternatives to donor-advised funds (DAFs), including new ways of redistributing wealth that align with your organization’s values. In existence since the 1930s, DAFs were originally created to be a mutually beneficial solution for donors to get tax breaks and nonprofits to get funding. However, due to lacking legal requirements to ensure those dollars get to nonprofits, the funds simply sit and grow. As of 2022, more than $1.5 trillion have been parked in DAFs across the United States. Donor-in-movement Funds (DMFs) are a justice-driven alternative to DAFs that make actionable and long-lasting change within Oregon’s social justice movements. In addition, DMFs spend down donations rather than hold them in perpetuity.
Speakers
Se-ah-dom Edmo, Seeding Justice
Dena Zaldúa, Seeding Justice
From surveying staff and grantees to changing applications and reports, join this session for an interactive opportunity to learn of the Mat-Su Health Foundation’s ongoing internal and external journey towards more equitable practices. This session will incorporate perspectives from grants management, program implementation, data and impact, and our diversity, equity, and inclusion leadership team. Participants can expect to learn about how various foundation departments have responded to survey data and how we use this data to improve our grantmaking and internal culture. The presentation will wrap up with case examples from our work to improve transparency and reduce grantee burden and will include time for small group discussion.
Speakers
Victoria Flint, Mats-Su Health Foundation
Danielle Reed, Mat-Su Health Foundation
Learn about the Commonwealth Fund’s (CWF) ambitious venture to reshape the grant review process. What started as an effort to address funder bias evolved into a comprehensive examination of CWF’s inherent organizational biases. Hear from the CWF team about this transformational journey and then transition to a fishbowl workshop to explore how the CWF’s experience can inform similar work in other organizations. Participants will be encouraged to actively contribute to discussions and reflect on how these insights might apply to their own organizations.
Speakers
Lovisa Gustaffson, Controlling Health Care Costs
Amy Johnson, Project Implicit
Andrea Landes, The Commonwealth Fund
Julian Scott, The Commonwealth Fund
Learn how a sabbatical-focused funder-nonprofit partnership that is rooted in trust and authentic communication can be a transformational driver of equity and help to power a cultural movement toward wellness and sustainability. The BIPOC ED Coalition of Washington State was created in 2020 to respond to intense community needs that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic and after the murder of George Floyd. At an emergency meeting, coalition members described profound exhaustion and burnout. Drawing upon community voices and research, the BIPOC ED launched a sabbatical initiative in 2022, making three-month sabbatical awards and one-month respite awards to BIPOC nonprofit leaders. Rest and renewal are foundational to racial justice and social change. Sabbaticals foster wellness, grow organizational capacity, and build power throughout the sector. From the start, Satterberg Foundation has been a key coalition partner, supporting this program and sharing lessons drawn from their past sabbatical initiative.
Speakers
Victoria Santos, BIPOC ED Coalition
Caroline Miceli, Satterberg Foundation
Join us for a thought-provoking panel discussion with representatives of three data sources in our field: Candid, Charity Navigator, and Impact Genome. We will explore how technology is breaking down barriers to make this information available and move more seamlessly in and out of where you work. Our expert panelists will share their experiences and insights on best practices for making data accessible, reusable, and actionable for all stakeholders. They will also discuss the challenges of collecting and sharing data in an equitable way, and they will offer technology and thought leadership solutions to these challenges. Through this session, you will better understand the potential benefits and challenges of sharing and reusing data and the critical role that funders can play in promoting equitable practices.
Speakers
C. Davis Fischer, PEAK Grantmaking
Alison Jannette, Candid
Hope Lyons, Charity Navigator
Jamie Carroll, Roots & Wings Foundation
Sandi Boga, Impact Genome Registry
Kyle Renninger, PEAK Grantmaking
As grantmakers look to support their grantees in the most effective ways possible, understanding a nonprofit’s financial health is key to ensuring grants and other assistance are structured to promote resilience now and into the future. This two-part series will begin March 18 with part one teaching participants how to identify key financial metrics that shed light on an organization’s liquidity, reserves, and ability to withstand challenges.
Join us for part two on March 19 where we will explore designing a less burdensome financial review process, how to use publicly available data to analyze trends, and reimagine what the financial due diligence process looks like within their organization.
If you do not already have a basic understanding of nonprofit financial health, it is highly recommended that you attend the first session in order to fully participate in the second session.
Speakers
Jennifer Pedroni, BDO USA
Megan Morrison, BDO USA
Hilda Polanco, BDO USA
Connie Kendig, BDO USA
This session will explore how a recoverable grant program can address cash flow challenges presented by reimbursable government grants to nonprofits. The hurdles related to reimbursement grants stem from delayed revenue, which can oblige nonprofits to maintain reserves and potentially result in missed opportunities or reliance on loans. Recoverable grants can ease this financial strain by providing crucial, upfront funding for government projects that can facilitate prompt project execution and enhance nonprofits’ overall effectiveness. Through case studies and group discussion, participants will learn how these grants foster trust-based relationships and enable funders to further leverage their endowments.
Speakers
Sahar Petri, Pacific Foundation Services
Yisroel Quint, Pacific Foundation Services
Studies show that a network of 150 people is the largest group that an individual can maintain to have optimal relationships and information exchanges. How you grow, nurture, and be in service to that network is essential in shaping your own career trajectory. This interactive workshop will delve into the science of networking for both introverts and extroverts. In addition, it will provide information on models of power and theories of leadership to help you make the leap from manager- or director-level roles to vice president and C-Suite roles. You will also learn tools to help you persuasively advocate for the existence of those higher-level positions at your foundation.
Speakers
Adam Liebling, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
Rachel Kimber, International NGO
Abigail Osei, The Starr Foundation
In this thought-provoking session, we will explore the critical issue of collaboration in grantmaking. As funders, we often ask grantees to collaborate, but do we lead by example? Join us to discover why grantmakers need to model collaboration within grantmaking to fund holistically, rather than applying band-aid solutions. Together, we’ll delve into practical strategies for collaboration. Don’t miss this opportunity to be part of a transformative discussion at PEAK2024.
Speakers
Maggie Oda, Delaware Community Foundation
Sarah Hench, Delaware Community Foundation
Grantmakers and learning and evaluation practitioners often look together through a metaphorical magnifying glass at the nonprofit community. One example is landscape analyses, which can help funders understand how to more effectively influence relevant issue areas. In this session, learn how one foundation engaged in a process of de-centering themselves to produce a constellation map—an alternative to a landscape analysis that is by and for nonprofits. This interactive working session will provide participants with an example of a constellation map and a framework to consider what new ideas and arrangements are possible so that philanthropy can use its power and resources to support social movements.
Speakers
Najah Casimir, Barr Foundation
Rory Neuner, Barr Foundation
Kenneth Bailey, Design Studio for Social Intervention
Evan Kuras, MXM Research Group
Funders and grantees know from experience that unrestricted funding support can quicken the arc of change and create healthier, more innovative, and more robust organizations. While some funders have begun the journey of trust-based philanthropy, for many others, figuring out how to get started has been difficult.
Join the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona to hear more about how they’ve incorporated trust-based donor collaboration into their largest unrestricted grants program contributing to more engaged, educated, and trust-based donor giving. This workshop will include an overview of the evolution of the foundation’s unrestricted grants program, the monumental role of both grantee and community feedback, and recommendations for incorporating donors as collaborators in unrestricted giving.
Speakers
David Gardner, Community Foundation for Southern Arizona
Enedina Miller, Community Foundation for Southern Arizona
Jeaiza Quinones Ivory, Community Foundation for Southern Arizona
Natalia Gabrielsen, Community Foundation for Southern Arizona
Margulf Foundation strives to create authentic relationships with grantees, ensuring they feel seen, heard, and valued. Staff leverages these relationships to create spaces where they as funders can truly listen to, understand, reflect on, and respond to grantee needs.
During this session, Margulf will share how the strength of relationships allowed grantees to authentically communicate their needs and struggles during the COVID-19 pandemic and how that led the foundation to launch a new grantmaking area that explicitly supports the health, wellness, and sustainability of grantee leaders and their teams. In addition to learning how Margulf centers relationships and iteration across its grantmaking practices, attendees will also hear directly from a grantee on their experience receiving wellness grants and how focusing on relationships strengthens funder-grantee partnerships and leads to more authentic learning and deeper impact.
Speakers
Kat Ling, Moonshot edVentures
Logan Boon, Margulf Foundation
Lina Osmundson, Margulf Foundation
“Intermediary” grantmakers have become an increasingly popular vehicle to enable funders to support work which they may not otherwise have direct access to, such as grassroots and Indigenous people’s organizations, grasstops advocacy, and lobbying. While such funding arrangements often result in a wide range of benefits for both funder and intermediary, terms like “intermediary” or “regrantor” connote a transactional relationship, which undermines the strategic value-add of these partnerships. In this session, we will challenge the notion that intermediaries merely act as transactional funding mechanisms and showcase the myriad of benefits that arise from working with such entities, including: mitigating risk; accessing know-how and networks at both grassroots and grasstops levels; and enabling more equitable, collaborative grantmaking to harness mutual learning and impact.
Speakers
Adriana Jimenez, Resources Legacy Fund
Steven Casey, We Mean Business Coalition, Inc.
Lourdes Inga, International Funders for Indigenous Peoples
As workplace trends continue to evolve and with increasing calls to change workplace conditions, how can organizations adapt to, or even get ahead of these changes? During this presentation by LaCire, you will be introduced to a number of tools, processes, and ideas that organizations can adopt to usher equitable, people-centered, and cutting-edge operations practices into the workplace. This session will highlight how organizations in grantmaking and philanthropy can be role models and thought leaders for organizations in other sectors, leading a movement for reimagining what a workplace could look like and how employees interact with it. This session will help you understand that reimagining the workplace to be more equitable and people-centered will make waves that will have long-lasting ripple effects for both employers and employees.
Speakers
Lauren Bell, LaCire LLC
Jamie Albaum, LaCire LLC
With the pace and expectations around philanthropy evolving so quickly, it’s important for grants managers to drive changes that help lead their organizations forward. Still, sometimes foundations are too focused on just getting their day-to-day work done to even consider how to create meaningful change. In this session, Amgen Foundation will share how, in the face of increased grant volume along with unexpected time and staff constraints, they have been able to completely transform their grantmaking operations without missing a beat.
Speaker
Jennifer Egglin, Amgen Foundation
Taxonomies provide the essential function of describing the work that is funded in an organization, which has a direct connection with who we are as organizations and by extension reflect our values as grantmakers. This session seeks to create a space for peer-to-peer learning about taxonomy and typology by drawing on the case of a large, international grantmaking organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and its taxonomy journey. NED’s nearly $300 million in annual grantmaking supports the growth and strengthening of a wide range of democratic institutions around the world. In 2019, NED decided to develop a completely new taxonomy as a part of its transition plan to a new grants management system. The process took almost a year and was carried out by an internal staff working group. NED now has three years of grantmaking data using its new taxonomy and has many reflections and learnings from its experience to share with other grantmakers.
Speakers
Rebekah Usatin, National Endowment for Democracy
Anna Keegan, National Endowment for Democracy
Are you weary of the unspoken tensions that seem to permeate the air when leaders and staff of different genders interact? Tired of the stereotypes that pigeonhole men as domineering, women as overly emotional, and nonbinary professionals as agenda-driven? It’s time to pull back the curtain on the gender dynamics that are too often swept under the rug. This provocative-yet-professional workshop is designed to tackle the pain points and expectations that plague grantmaking professionals, particularly people of color. Attendees will leave equipped with insights and tools to challenge gender dynamics, and inspire actionable change in the workplace.
Speakers
Ayodele Harrison, CommunityBuild Ventures
Natasha Harrison, CommunityBuild Ventures
Join the Pittsburgh Foundation to hear about the foundation’s recent shift in stewarding endowed field of interest funds. Recognizing that these funds were not being fully utilized, they contacted fellow PEAK members to hear about alternative ways of managing them. That effort led to a transition from a grant-first model to a budget-first model that prioritized purpose-aligned grantmaking while also creating transparency and sharing power across the staff. The result was transformative, both in the foundation’s ability to meet donor intent and community need, but also internally in how we share information and empower staff at all levels.
Speakers
Ashley Hezel, The Pittsburgh Foundation
Traci Johnson, The Pittsburgh Foundation
Colin Richardson, Climate and Clean Energy Equity Fund
In 2014, the Seattle Foundation and King County government were each laying the groundwork to address economic and racial inequities through place-based work and systemic change. Community leaders, King County, and the Seattle Foundation came together to incubate a new public-private approach called Communities of Opportunity (COO).
This session will consist of an interactive panel between COO’s current funding partners, directors, and grantees who will share their experience developing and implementing this innovative partnership that funds community power building. Participants will understand the process and challenges of funding communities to have the resources, capacity, and power to be self-determined and thriving. They will also learn from this innovative partnership strategy and gain insight into the tools used to fund COO from the perspectives of private funders, county staff, and community-based organizations.
Speakers
Elsa Batres-Boni, Communities of Opportunity
Jackie Vaughn, Surge Reproductive Justice
Michael Brown, Seattle Foundation
This introduction to fiscal sponsorship for grants managers will focus on the evolution of “”management commons””—fiscal sponsorship grounded in equity practices. Participants will first learn about the sector trends detailed in the Social Impact Common’s report 2023 Fiscal Sponsorship Field Scan, as well as the uses and mechanics of the principal fiscal sponsorship models practiced today. The discussion will also dive into policy and practice considerations specific to grantmakers, with a focus on grants management. Topics will include the handling of fiscal sponsorship cost allocations (fees) relative to allowable indirect costs; legal concepts for funders and equitable contracting; grant application, review, and management considerations, and others. The workshop will conclude with breakout groups where you will design practices and policies and address some real scenarios and questions to apply your knowledge.
Speakers
Thaddeus Squire, Social Impact Commons
Asta Petkeviciute, Social Impact Commons
The implications of how artificial intelligence (AI) will impact the way we work and live can’t be overstated. When Microsoft Philanthropies in Atlanta and United Way of Greater Atlanta began working on technology capacity building, they knew they needed to create accessible inroads for nonprofits to learn about and use generative AI (GAI) in their operations and programs. This thought-provoking conversation will explore how philanthropy can leverage GAI as an equity tool; the tiered approach to technology capacity building that provided accessibility to nonprofits with low technology skill sets in Atlanta; and real case studies on how Atlanta-area nonprofits are utilizing GAI.
Speakers
Erika Smith, Microsoft
Gail Conyers Cleckley, United Way of Greater Atlanta
Jahari Soward, NPursuit Career Partners
Listening to the people at the heart of our work—those most affected by our grantmaking decisions—can help us reimagine our grantmaking strategies and practices. But the communities we strive to listen to are not monoliths, and the more deeply we listen, the more likely we’ll hear conflicting opinions and perspectives, especially on crucial issues. This session offers a nuanced look at how we can weave our values into both the intention and the execution of our listening exercises—and how doing so can help us shift grantmaking practices within our own organizations and across the sector. Join this highly interactive session to identify the values that can guide your listening practice; learn practical ways to overcome barriers to equitable, high-quality listening; and develop strategies to bring your board, senior leadership team, and grantees along on the journey.
Speakers
Anne Grier, Feedback Labs
Luc Athayde-Rizzaro, Ford Foundation
Mark Walker, Jessie Ball duPont Fund
Knowledge work is an emerging focus within grants management. It includes all the many ways grants professionals are called upon to design, organize, and facilitate shared meaning-making within funded change strategy. Whether you are new to knowledge work or have been immersed in it for many years, this session provides an opportunity to learn with peers about an approach for identifying and maximizing knowledge opportunities. This session will frame knowledge work as essential to equity and effective grantmaking and explore the knowledge opportunity scanning process as a way to
Be ready to hear about the experiences of peers and their knowledge journeys and to share your own questions and challenges. Together, we will generate new understandings of how equity principles and knowledge practices can be strategically aligned with our change efforts.
Speakers
Angela Frusciante, Knowledge Designs To Change LLC
Beth Jones, The Greater Clark Foundation
Vanessa Samuelson, The McGregor Fund
Deena Scotti, Missouri Foundation for Health
By shifting focus from evaluation to learning, philanthropy can move from being hyper-focused on numbers and data sets to centering community experiences and stories, and the sector can gain a deeper understanding of the people it seeks to help. The use of different learning tools such as storytelling, video, and ethnography not only provides much needed texture to a foundation’s learning, it allows for learning that centers lived experiences, personal narratives, and self-advocacy. These learning approaches further humanize the issues that charts and graphs alone cannot. Join the conversation and expand your approach to learning, sharing, and evolving.
Speakers
Eusebio Diaz, Health Forward Foundation
Miyesha Perry, Bainum Family Foundation
Hayat Abdullahi, Health Forward Foundation
This session will provide strategies for managing budgets, payments, cashflows, and projections for grantmaking. This includes guidance for working with key stakeholders on overall budget management including finance and accounting colleagues. Come to learn more about the core components of budget management, best practices to be audit ready, working with the board and senior organization leaders, managing foreign exchange rate impacts, and cashflow.
Speakers
Elsa Chin, JPMorgan Chase
Amber Felger, JPMorgan Chase
True leadership is epitomized when our actions are in harmony with our values and propel us to create lasting impact in philanthropy. In this session, learn how to align values with your day-to-day behaviors and decisions. Participate in reflective activities to hone in on your personal and organizational values, ensuring they not only resonate as bold statements, but also manifest as consistent, values-driven actions.
Speaker
Daniel Weinzveg, The Meeting Guru
Funders have been moving toward trust-based philanthropic practices to address a key aspect of balancing the resourcing relationship. But how do we effectively measure changes in equity- and rights-based grantmaking while also reducing burdens on our grantee partners? In this session, learn about the process that The Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation has developed to answer this question, and explore more ideas with their colleagues in the room.
Speakers
Andrea Dobson, The Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation
Alexandra Pittman, ImpactMapper