From the Nonprofit VOTE Team: 

With less than a year to go until the 2024 election, I’m excited to share that Nonprofit VOTE has launched a new resource intended to help foundations work with their communities to build a more vibrant and inclusive democracy. Nonprofit VOTE’s Philanthropy for Voter Engagement project is now live at philanthropy.nonprofitvote.org. 

Over the last several months, the team at Nonprofit VOTE has interviewed dozens of foundations about how they approach nonpartisan voter engagement work. We’re pleased to have compiled our findings into a new online resource full of case studies, best practices, and resources for foundations committed to sustain and strengthen our nation’s democracy while improving mission effectiveness.

A few ways you can help spread the word: 

Please share the resource with your networks. You can use this promotional guide which includes sample newsletter inserts and social media posts.
We’re bringing this resource to virtual and in-person funder events and conferences. If you’d like to request a briefing for your organization or funder network on ways foundations can get involved in voter engagement, please contact me at angie@faitlaforce.co and we’ll coordinate with the Nonprofit VOTE team.
Our next webinar event will be in collaboration with United Philanthropy Forum on December 4th at 1:00pm EST. Learn more and register for the virtual event here. A recording will be shared after as well. 

“Ongoing efforts to roll back social gains, such as reproductive and LGBTQ rights, have made one thing clear: Focusing on politics alone won’t create lasting social change. Political debates and legislation are too closely tied to the whims of the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court. Instead, what drives long-term shifts is culture — the public attitudes and narratives that underlie progress,” said Ken Grossinger for The Chronicle of Philanthropy. 

“That’s why some of the most effective social movements combine activism with art — music, film, theater, visual arts, and more. When artist-activists and community and labor organizers work together, they have the power to convert minds and hearts and transform societies. Many are using art to create powerful narratives — taking control of the stories that shape how we think about history, culture, people, and places.”

Read the full piece here.

From Sustainable Arts Foundation: 

Our reading and dialogue with colleagues have sharpened our focus on the unjust distribution of wealth in this country. In solidarity with the groundswell of efforts toward decolonization, we feel compelled to spend down our foundation’s assets.

SAF was started with funds inherited from Tony’s grandfather, who in the early 1900s bought land and oil rights in Central California, profiting from the state’s 19th century genocide of its Indigenous people and dispossession of their land. This land in present-day Kern County, the ancestral home of the Yokuts, Chumash, and other Indigenous people, shares its history with nearly all of California’s land: it was stolen from its original inhabitants, who were forcibly removed through murder and enslavement.

We no longer feel entitled to use this money.

We remain deeply connected to and supportive of the creative parent community we have served for the last thirteen years. However, our need to address the source of our funding has brought us to a new resolve.

We are returning the foundation’s remaining funds to the communities from which they were taken. We will announce these unrestricted grants—to local tribes, California Native programs, and Native-led national organizations—as they are finalized.

We see this as an expansion of our mission and a shift in how we work for it.

The spirit of sustainability in the name of our foundation calls for approaches that downplay commodification and competition and instead lift up all creative practices. We intend to build community and work for structural reforms which will have a greater impact than our grantmaking ever could. We are developing partnerships with others working for a more equitable, anti-racist future. Ultimately, we hope that capitalism—and the compensatory philanthropy it relies on—is replaced by a more just distribution of wealth.

This work may outlive us, but as parents we have developed great patience, and a deep commitment to the generations to come.

Caroline and Tony Grant

Read the full announcement here.

“Here’s a challenge: Find a figure in American philanthropy more inspiring, more knowledgeable, or better able to articulate both the vast import and fundamental limitations of this great national tradition than Darren Walker. The president of the behemoth Ford Foundation for the last decade, he has a story that reaches from rural poverty to corporate law to Wall Street to community organizing in Harlem to his current perch atop a $16 billion dollar organization that he has leveraged into perhaps the greatest force for social justice worldwide,” said Laureen Powell Jobs for Town & Country. 

“His day job involves overseeing a sprawling network of grant­makers doling out hundreds of millions of dollars annually to work that promotes social justice in every facet of life, from voting rights to disaster relief to the arts. But his role as an ambassador for these causes is equally notable. Walker’s charming ability to serve both realism and optimism in the same breath when confronting even the thorniest questions (for instance, how does one remedy inequality with the very wealth that stems from it?) is what has captivated world leaders, celebrities, and changemakers alike. Walker sat down with his friend, the philanthropist and Ford Foundation board member Laurene Powell Jobs, to contemplate these very things.”

Read the full interview here.

The Mortimer & Mimi Levitt Foundation, a social impact funder at the intersection of music, public space, and community building, today announced it will spend down its $150M in assets over the next two decades and will close its doors in 2041. This shift will significantly increase the Foundation’s ability to support thousands of free outdoor concerts in communities across America, fueling the movement for centering arts investments in public spaces as a key driver for positive change, building social capital and economic vitality in communities.

By becoming a “spend down” foundation and dedicating all financial resources to creative placemaking over the next two decades, the Levitt Foundation will deepen the impact of its giving at a time when many communities in our country are at a crossroads, with shifting industries, changing demographics, and increasing social isolation contributing to more divisiveness in our country. There is a pressing need for programs that foster social cohesion, create a sense of belonging, and increase community resiliency and economic opportunity, and the Levitt program of free concerts in underused spaces for social and economic impact is a proven model that is transformational for communities.

Read the full announcement here.

“Nonprofit leaders perceive lobbying, as it is currently practiced and understood, as corrupt conduct that exerts undue influence to the detriment of fair, impartial, and effective policymaking. The popular imagination associates lobbying with dodgy deals in smoke-filled back rooms,” said Alberto Alemanno for Stanford Social Innovation Review. 

“But lobbying can actually be an antidote to such secret bargaining. A right that democracies guarantee, lobbying is about providing ideas and sharing concerns with policy makers to make them—and the whole policy process—more responsive. It enables society to tackle the root causes of the major challenges facing us, not their symptoms. In fact, lobbying is one of the most effective ways to enact political, economic, and social change.”

Read the full piece here.

From Regional Arts Organizations:

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) awards thousands of grants each year to provide diverse opportunities for arts participation. However, historically underserved communities with rich and dynamic cultural identities continue to report lower arts participation rates than other groups. To address these disparities and better understand these dynamics, the NEA, in partnership with South Arts and in collaboration with the five other U.S. Regional Arts Organizations (RAOs), launched a new grant program, ArtsHERE. 

ArtsHERE supports organizations that have demonstrated a commitment to equity within their practices and programming and have undertaken consistent engagement with underserved groups/communities. Grants are for specific projects that will strengthen the organization’s capacity to sustain meaningful community engagement and increase arts participation for underserved groups/communities. Grantees have access to peer-learning and technical assistance opportunities designed to share knowledge and build networks. 

As a pilot program, ArtsHERE will be documented and evaluated by the National Endowment for the Arts to better understand the project activities supported and how grantees approached this work.

Learn more about the fund here.