The Barr Foundation (Barr) seeks consultant partners to support the newly launched cohort, Powering Cultural Futures (PCF), a new six-year initiative that provides funding, technical assistance, peer networking, and other supports to a diverse cohort of 15 BIPOC-rooted organizations in Massachusetts.

Details for the roles of a team of consultants to lead initiative activities in the first year, which are:

Organizational Development Consultant will guide each organization in the PCF cohort through a collaborative self-assessment and prioritization process, resulting in a set of customized capacity-building recommendations, as well as plan and implement 2-3 trainings on organizational development topics for the entire cohort. The initial contract period for this role will be one year (May 2022 – April 2023).
Cohort Convener will facilitate a group process for the cohort to establish shared expectations and values; engage in trust building; and identify needs and peer resource assets across the cohort for the purposes of peer learning. The initial contract period for this role will be for one year (May 2022 – April 2023).
Program Manager will oversee initiative operations, consultant deadlines, and internal communications; co-design a learning agenda with the cohort; and other tasks to be determined that support the cohort, Barr, and the consultant team. The initial contract period for this role will be for 18 months (May 2022 – October 2023).

Full proposals are due to Giles Li, Senior Program Officer at gli@barrfoundation.org by Thursday, March 24, 2022.

Victor Tavarez, John Harper, and Fay Hanleybrown present, “Four ways funders of collective impact efforts can help foster trust to strengthen collaboration and achieve greater impact,” in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Tavarez, Harper, and Hanleybrown summarize, “Regardless of the approach, building trust requires creating authentic and vulnerable connections with community partners while taking concrete actions to be a genuine collaborator.”

Read their recommendations here.

“From digital libraries to fully immersive schools, Indigenous leaders are reclaiming and spreading cultural knowledge to ensure it doesn’t get lost,” explains Fix Solutions Lab associate editor Claire Elise Thompson.

Thompson charts new approaches as, “Today, many Native people are reclaiming and revitalizing ceremonies, foodways, and land stewardship — and in many cases, discovering that to preserve their traditions, they must embrace new ways of passing them along.”

Read more here.