Many funders have begun to emphasize strategies to help them learn from the perspectives, experiences, and voices of the communities where they give.
Some funders make a practice of regularly calling upon experts and consultants to help them learn about community issues, while other efforts, like the Peninsula Community Foundation’s Venture Van program, take donors out into the community to help them learn about local issues and nonprofits first-hand.
Some funders have developed additional forums for obtaining local input. For example, the Yuma Community Foundation, an affiliate of the Arizona Community Foundation, has hosted a series of community roundtable discussions where local residents and nonprofits join the Foundation to assess community needs and consider solutions for local problems.
In Arkansas and Mississippi, the Foundation for the Mid South’s Communities of Opportunity Initiative engages intended beneficiaries in the conceptualization and management of interventions designed to address their needs.
Other organizations, like the Jacobs Family Foundation, the Knight Foundation, and the Zellerbach Family Foundation, have created ongoing community advisory boards to help ensure that their grantmaking is responsive to local needs and issues.
And still other funders, like the Santa Monica-based Durfee Foundation and members of the national Funding Exchange coalition, involve community activists, consultants, and former grantees not just as advisers, but as fully empowered participants in the grants decision-making process.
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