As the year is ending, and I enter my 3rd year fully integrated in the field of philanthropy and fundraising, the joke I have often been saying out loud is:
“I wish I was bad at my job.”
Essay Archives
Open call for MacKenzie Scott grants unleashes possibility
We collectively benefit when these historically excluded groups are resourced in their leadership, ideas, solutions, and joy. However, when we miss this lens, funders inadvertently perpetuate further marginalization and exclusion.
A Christmas Carol, updated for our times
Charles Dickens’s novella a Christmas Carol is a timeless classic. It was first published in 1843 and has never gone out of print. But 1843 is nearly 180 years ago. It’s time for us to update the story to be more relevant to our times.Leading with trust: Our (successful!) experiment with Transformational Capacity Building
By josh martinez and Sarah Benner-Kenagy
One of the biggest stressors in the world of social services is money. Who has it? Who needs it? What does the person who has it want in return for giving it to the person who doesn’t? On a person-to-person level, most people don’t attach strings to the dollar they give to someone on the street (and if you do, please stop!). But on a funder-to-organization level, we have strings a-plenty! Why is that? What if there was another way?
A message of support by the Community-Centric Fundraising Global Council for AFP Chicago’s open letter to AFP Global
One of the core values of the Community-Centric Fundraising movement is that of Courage. We must challenge the way things are done and take bold action if we want to see the change that is needed to create equitable fundraising practices. For this reason, we support efforts which advocates for safe and healthy environments for fundraisers to do good work.
4 profound, professionally enhancing insights from a silent meditation retreat
“I am grateful I spent 10 days this year in silent meditation, a privilege that many nonprofit workers are not granted due to supremacy work cultures. During this time I came to four profound, professionally enhancing insights as it relates to my nonprofit work.”
Strategy, partnerships, implementation: where to start?
“Fundraisers have so much power to push forward equitable practices at the organizations we represent. You can commit to using that influence to encourage your nonprofit and partners to push for systemic change.”
How I learned to say, “Not today, imposter syndrome!”
I want to talk about impostor syndrome, that little hater we all know who has grown too comfortable living in our bodies. It’s the voice that tells the story of our failure, over and over again. Really, it’s a wound we have to heal.
Bringing donors into the movement
Community-Centric Fundraising (CCF) is a movement founded by fundraising professionals — but its success will not be realized if we do not cast a wider net to others impacted by the ineffective and inequitable realities of the nonprofit sector.
In a season of rampant anti-Indigeneity, here are some things you should and shouldn’t do to be pro-Indigenous
On days including and between Indigenous People’s Day and Native American Heritage Day, I feel like I run a gauntlet of aggressions, micro and macro, from white-led environmental nonprofits, white people in environmental nonprofits, and sometimes even from my kinfolk who aren’t transparent when trying to get white peoples’ money to continue their good works in their nonprofits.
From status quo to radical quo: personal lessons from electoral fundraising
By Allison Celosia and Priscilla Hsu
“Why are fundraisers in electoral and advocacy spaces doing the same old nonprofit-y donor-centric scarcity mindset sense of urgency nonsense? Aren’t politicians and community organizers supposed to challenge and transform the status quo?”
3 ways I am helping expand access and foster diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in an Ivy league school
Inspired by CCF’s 10 Principles of Community-Centric Fundraising, I have reflected on how I champion DEIB in my role, and wanted to share my strategies with other higher education Corporate and Foundation Relations (CFR) professionals.