The Why of Weaving
As a foundation, at the beginning and end of every day, we’re clear that our purpose is to provide resources that promote leadership development toward an equitable, vibrant New York City — and to do so in a way that is directed by our partners. As part of my evolution as a network weaver, and in my current role managing the Exploring Leadership project at the foundation, one way I operationalize this is by designing and managing the learning loops between our grant partners, staff, board, and the field of leadership practitioners and funders. Part of that involves building and expanding our team’s practice so that it leans into the principles of a weaver mindset: get into the field, build relationships, listen deeply, and tune into possible connections. Doing so makes it possible for the team to better answer questions like:
How must our grantmaking practices evolve to continue to live into our trust-based values?
What do our grant partners need in order to step into their leadership more powerfully and joyfully on behalf of their communities?
This spring, our staff spent a ton of time on the road with fellow funders and leadership development field partners in service of this continuous exploration. As a solutions-oriented weaver, one of the hardest balances to strike is to hold a question tightly enough to listen for answers, but loosely enough to not force a quick or particular conclusion. Here are a few insights that my colleagues and I are holding loosely from the past few months, as we tune into what short and long term possibilities they might be signaling:
Leadership Funders Group
During the Leadership Funders Group (LFG) — a space facilitated by the Building Movement Project to connect funders from across the country who resource leadership development — we heard from Tonne Lawson (The Be .ORG), Rashad Staton (Community Law in Action), and Brittany Young (B-360). These young Black executive directors leading Baltimore nonprofits reminded us of how individual lives and whole communities can be transformed through community leadership. They also made clear the unseen but very real personal and organizational costs of leadership, echoing much of what has been reported in Reckoning with Sustainability: Black Leaders Reflect on 2020, the Funding Cliff, and Organizing Infrastructure and The Push and Pull: Declining Interest in Nonprofit Leadership.
Their stories anchored our conversations for the rest of the gathering about how to address the struggles and elevate the brilliance of the countless Tonnes, Rashads and Brittanys across the sector. For example, funders in the room named the importance of increasing the number, quality, and accessibility of fellowships and sabbaticals, which many LFG funders support. Executive directors continuously name the importance of resourcing the relational, rest, and dream space for stretched leaders that these programs provide.
Many program officers and directors in the room also discussed technical fixes to grant application and disbursement processes that could reduce the unnecessary stress named by many executive directors. But the deepest resonance was the call from Lisa Hamilton, head of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, to recognize our privileged position as a well-resourced part of the social change ecosystem and stand firm against the attacks on DEI efforts (and the funding that enables it) that leaders and their communities are unfairly bearing the brunt of.
Liberatory Leadership Partnership
Three years ago, our foundation, the Center for Third World Organizing (CTWO), and the Leadership Learning Community (LLC) co-founded the Liberatory Leadership Partnership (LLP) to provide discussion spaces and tools for operationalizing a vision for liberatory leadership — a style of leadership that invites one to lead from a place of love, wholeness, and interdependence with the goal of operationalizing a vision of personal and collective wholeness, freedom, justice and thriving.
During our recent retreat this spring, we asked:
After three years of great work, does the partnership need to continue?
If so, what was the most supportive structure for supporting liberatory work?
And particularly resonant for me, can we design a structure that makes space and balances power for all of our identities, including mine as a funder?
After two expertly facilitated days (shout out to Nikita Mitchell!) we determined that there is still a need for the LLP. Leaders — particularly Black women in this moment — still need support and instruction around liberatory practice within organizations. These include spaces like the Living Liberation conference hosted by CTWO and the Mending Series hosted by LLC. Partnership organizations still need alignment space and this important work still needs to be normalized and prioritized amongst funders. During the retreat we agreed that LLP should continue to play this role.
Grantmakers for Effective Organizations
At Grantmakers for Effective Organizations — a connection and learning space for our peers in philanthropy — we were heartened to see that there is a growing group of funders committed to trust-based philanthropy. We were once among the few, but now there is a chorus of many. We hope that this is a lasting practice of philanthropy that makes it easier for organizations to do their critical mission work.
GEO also offered conversations about how artificial intelligence can (and is) being used in our work. This cemented our peripheral thought that we need to get more serious about understanding AI and sharing our learnings with our community. We are wondering whether there are ways we can use AI to bolster our trust-based practices, and conversely, what are the threats?
Another conversation that felt exciting this year was about reparations, which surfaced dialogue about the role of philanthropy in both supporting reparations work and examining the sources of its wealth and how and when to adopt a stance of accountability and repair. Our colleagues at the iF Foundation and NCRP presented on the Cracks in the Foundation report which looks at the sources of wealth for DC-based foundations funding racial justice work. And the folks at Liberation Ventures shared their A Reparations Roadmap for Philanthropy. This too has implications for the foundation and how we do our work.
Weave with us
Supporting the foundation’s learning means supporting this ongoing practice of listening, tuning in to what’s possible, and weaving it into our practice of supporting leadership in a trust-based way. So we’ll continue to share along the way. As always, we’re interested to hear from grant partners and foundation colleagues if any of these updates resonate with what you’re seeing in the field and what your own learning loops look like. Please email us at EL@rsclark.org if you’d like to connect!