Giving Compass' Take:

• Nell Edgington, writing for Social Velocity, discusses five steps that nonprofit leaders can take to bring about social change in the funding ecosystem. 

• How can donors support nonprofit leaders effectively to enact social change? What do healthy, collaborative funder-nonprofit relationships look like? 

• Learn how nonprofit professionals can move conversations forward in social change work. 

I received a great comment from a reader of my recent post, “The System for Funding Nonprofits is Crumbling. That’s a Good Thing.” While blog reader Vanessa agreed with my assessment that how we fund social change is horribly broken, she very rightly wanted to know what an individual nonprofit leader can do to overcome that system. As Vanessa wrote:

"I am in full agreement with you. And yet, as a nonprofit leader, how can I just ‘decide’ all that on my own? “Fully equal partnerships with funders, receiving all the money they need to implement and scale the solutions they offer” – that of course is my dream, but what is the pathway to that? If the funders all decided this, we’d have a different world, here. But how do NFP leaders make that happen?”

An individual nonprofit leader can help shift the social change funding ecosystem in 5 key steps:

  1. Realize The System (Not You) is Broken
  2. Step Into Your Power
  3. Embrace an Abundance Mindset
  4. Make Money Your Best Friend
  5. Mobilize Your Networks

Once more and more nonprofit leaders start realizing that the system is broken, stepping into their own power, embracing an abundance mindset, making money their best friend and mobilizing their networks, the way money flows to social change will fundamentally shift. Gone will be the days when nonprofit leaders stayed small, poor and powerless. Suddenly these same nonprofit leaders will be fully empowered, resourced, networked and able to create sustainable, lasting social change.

Read the full article about social change by Nell Edgington at Social Velocity.