Setting a New Standard: The Role of Philanthropy in Grantee Working Conditions

About

High rates of staff turnover, dissatisfied team members, and stressed directors. Organizational leaders are asking big questions about how to best support their staff, while trying to remain accountable to the rigorous impact metrics from their funders.

What is the role of philanthropy in helping to ensure their grantee organizations are creating quality jobs and sustainable work environments? And how should we understand the conversation about quality jobs within nonprofits as directly connected to an organization’s strategic efficacy?

Most program officers want to support healthy work environments, but are hesitant to ask questions about what staff members are being paid, what types of benefits are being provided, and other HR-related questions, for fear of being seen as overly invasive and veering towards a model of grantmaking that undermines the authority of directors to make decisions on behalf of their teams.

Join our experts to hear an overview of their research and explore how grantmakers can support their grantees to “practice what they preach,” to improve jobs while investing in long-term, enduring impact.

What will you learn?

• The current working conditions of community organizers and its impact on our ability to win (with a focus on the impact of these conditions on organizers of color, women, LGBTQ+, those with disabilities, rural, and/or undocumented organizers)
• How grantmakers can have explicit conversations with grantees about the organizational culture they’re trying to create and how that may or may not align with the pressures they feel to deliver on programmatic impact
• Opportunities to be in existing communities of practice where funders are practicing new shifts

Presenters

• Trish Adobea Tchume, Senior Director, Robert Sterling Clark
• Alicia Jay, Co-Director, All Due Respect
• Rickke Mananzala, Executive Director, New York Foundation
• Kevin Simowitz, Co-Director, All Due Respect
• Kellie Terry, Program Director, North Star Fund

Who should attend?

All interested funders in grantmaking, evaluation, capacity-building, and HR/Ops roles. What to expect: presentation followed by breakouts.

How do you sign up?

Members: To register yourself and/or a colleague at your organization, please log in and click the Register Now link above. (no fee)

Guests of Collaborators: Please email register@philanthropynewyork.org with your name, title, organizational affiliation, business mailing address, and phone number. Please indicate by which organizer you were invited. (no fee)

Non-Member Funders: Please email register@philanthropynewyork.org. ($150 fee).

Registration is required by May 17th. 

Registrants will receive the webinar link a day prior to each session.