A call for leadership for the inaugural CCF Global Council

Note: This post was updated on 2/18/2022 to reflect the change in timeline and deadlines. At the moment, we don’t know what the new timeline is but will update everyone as soon as we figure out what is comfortable for folks.

This summer, we’re planning to transition leadership of Community-Centric Fundraising (CCF) from its co-founders to a CCF Global Council, and we sincerely hope that you will consider applying for this. There are more details about what it all entails, but first, here’s backstory for those of you who like context!

The backstory

As many of us already know, CCF was started in the summer of 2020, when a group of badass fundraisers of color from Seattle came together to launch Community-Centric Fundraising. Core to this founding were CCF’s 10 Principles, an ever-evolving set of guiding ideas grounded in racial and economic justice aimed at undoing white supremacist structures within the fields of fundraising and philanthropy, building upon ideas seeded by leaders of color for years.

From the very beginning, the CCF co-founders knew they were advancing a movement rather than naming a practice. By establishing a movement grounded in the Principles, the CCF co-founders sought to radically redistribute and build power from within, to create a distributed and agile force that advocated for sweeping changes — globally. Basically: the existing leadership knew that they weren’t going to be at the helm of CCF forever. They knew power needed to be distributed out.

So last fall, the CCF Founding Council began calling in colleagues around the country to get moving on this work. As a result, the CCF transition pod, made up of Rakhi Agrawal, Marcus Cunningham, Marisa DeSalles, Rachel D’Souza-Siebert, and Rehana Lanewala was born!

The transition pod’s work

Over the course of the last six months, our pod has developed a process to advance the CCF movement by transitioning the core leadership of this work from the Seattle-based CCF Founding Council to a CCF Global Council that actively broadens the movement beyond the borders of the United States, Canada, and other Eurocentric countries.

FYI, while CCF announced intentions to transfer leadership by the end of 2021, through discussion, the CCF Transition Pod decided to delay the transition until the summer of 2022, to allow time to engage in deep conversations about how to approach this transition with care and deliberate intention.

In an early pandemic blog post, adrienne maree brown asked, “how do we vision, build and sustain movements that are liberatory spaces? where, by entering, humans find themselves in spaces where their whole selves are welcomed and they are encouraged to grow?”

As our transition pod worked through this process, our pod members interrogated existing structures. We discovered how the behaviors of white supremacy can sneak their way into our work despite the best laid plans and intentions to actively move towards visions of equity, justice, and liberation. Through hours of involved discussion, we have designed an inaugural version of the Global Council that we hope will actively evolve the movement to have a transformative impact on our sector globally.

Just what will members of the CCF Global Council do?

CCF Global Council members will ultimately be charged with supporting and resourcing the movement, including but not limited to: programming, online community engagement, management of CCF’s Hub, fundraising to sustain movement operations, finances, and much more.

The CCF Global Council will also continue to center those previously marginalized, especially the voices and lived experience of people and communities of color.

Being a part of the inaugural CCF Global Council will be a part-time position, compensated with a $5,000 stipend for the first year of their term (more on this in our FAQ!).

Apply to the CCF Global Council!

We encourage folks who are passionate about CCF to apply (you don’t have to work in nonprofit or fundraising!). The selection committee will prioritize those applicants most affected by systems of injustice and oppression. We also hope folks who traditionally hold or see themselves represented in positions of power and privilege in our sector will take this opportunity to step back while leaders from marginalized backgrounds, especially BIPOC, step up into global leadership.

While designing this inaugural structure, the CCF transition pod thought through many foundational questions. Feel free to read through our application FAQ to learn more.

Ready to apply? Awesome. Here are broad steps:

1. Read the job description!
2. POSTPONED: Sign up for our virtual info session on February 21, 2022, where members of the CCF Transition Pod will be on hand to give an overview and answer questions. The webinar will be recorded and shared on CCF channels.
3.  Apply by 11:59 PM PST on March 7, 2022 through our online application page.

Applications will be reviewed in the weeks after the deadline. There will be a virtual interview process with candidates for the Global Council. We were originally hoping Global Council members would start their terms in July 2022, but it’s possible that could get pushed out a bit.

Please read our FAQ for questions you may have. If you have questions about the Transition Pod’s work or the Global Council application process not answered here, please submit them here by entering code 98118 and clicking ‘new’. If you already see your question represented, please ‘upvote’ it by clicking on that sticky note. For all other CCF-related inquiries, as always, please contact hello@communitycentricfundraising.org.