Funders, Bathroom Stalls, and Hegemony: Reflections on a Missed Opportunity...
Last week I gathered up TWI’s NYC-based grantees, a couple of funder colleagues, and a couple of consultant friends for a conversation about trust-based grant-making. I followed many of my own rules,...
View ArticleBeyond the Rockstar Paradigm, Part II
Years ago, I blogged that social movement leadership needed to live into models that do not solely hinge on a single, visionary, rockstar leader. One of TWI’s core partners, Building Movement Project,...
View ArticleWhen Anger is the Logical Choice
How do we make challenging critiques within philanthropy in a way that people can hear? That question came up strongly this week when I read a couple of blog posts from Jake Hayman of the Social...
View ArticleA Conversation with Rajasvini Bhansali of IDEX on their 30th Anniversary
The past weekend was IDEX’s 30th anniversary. International Development Exchange (IDEX) is a TWI multi-year grantee and also a funding partner. Before the IDEX 30th celebration I was able to catch up...
View ArticleChangemakers & funders unite, share ideas at Ashoka Future Forum
How can we re-imagine a brighter future through social enterprise? This question was at the heart of the recent Ashoka Future Forum, which attracted about 400 social entrepreneurs from around the...
View ArticleAkaya Windwood on Joyful Leadership and So Much More
Akaya Windwood is the President of the Rockwood Leadership Institute. As a follow up to the profile I did on the Rockwood Institute, I sat down with Akaya to talk about Rockwood’s relationship with...
View ArticleAmplifying Unheard Voices with Long Term Funding Structures
TWI is proud to be one of Voice of Witness’s first core funders to provide multi-year support. As Voice of Witness continues to expand, we will continue to support their work and mission, which is...
View ArticleExploring the Restrictions on Unrestricted Funding: Part III
Knowing my own history with TWI, someone recently asked me for advice. As a non-profit board member, she was struggling with how to handle the anger she often feels when dealing with wealthy donors...
View ArticleRepost: Funder Q&A: The Power of Listening to Your Grantees
This was originally posted on The Center for Effective Philanthropy website on July 23rd, written by Ethan McCoy. On June 2, Don Matteson, chief program officer at The Peter and Elizabeth C. Tower...
View ArticleOn Behalf of Naiveté
Recently I found myself around a table of philanthropic leaders in California, many seasoned funders who’ve funded social change and civil rights for years – if not decades. We were gathered around the...
View Article12 Awesome Things Funders Do
We at TWI are in full agreement with Vu Le’s recent post about 12 things funders are doing right. In fact, many of the 12 show up on TWI’s own compendium of 9 Practices of Trust-based Investment. In...
View ArticleRepost: New Nexus white paper “Born to Give: A Human Approach to Catalyzing...
First Posted by Nexus on July 22, 2015 on Nexus Blog For the past five years, Nexus has bridged communities of wealth and social entrepreneurship and given birth to a movement that has spread all over...
View ArticleCan Black Lives Matter to Philanthropy?
The original question in the title of this article (reposted below) is “Can Philanthropy Make Black Lives Matter?” Our reaction at TWI is that philanthropy alone probably cannot wholesale shift...
View Article3 Ways Funders Can Listen Much More Closely
I appreciated Paul Shoemaker’s recent article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy entitled “How to Rebuild Philanthropy’s Ability to Change the World” so much that I stole one of the subtitles – Listen...
View ArticleRepost: Getting To Community Democracy
This article was originally published on June 12, 2015 on the Philanthropy NorthWest site. We want to highlight the convening Community Democracy held and uplift the work they are doing. Sindhu Knotz,...
View ArticleWhat Makes a Retreat Restorative: A Reflection on TWI Retreat 2015
I have been working in or closely around the philanthropic world for the last…can it be 17 years? Still, when I try to explain what I do at family gatherings, I often come to a point when I have to...
View ArticlePrivilege and Power in Funding Dynamics
Trust-based relationships. Grantee-centric philanthropy. True partnerships that advance impact for communities. How do we together improve the efficiency, respectfulness, and outcomes of our sector?...
View ArticleI Will Stand By You: A Reflection on TWI’s Sixth Retreat
TWI held its first weekend retreat in October 2007 with the aim of bringing together our current grantees with our board and staff for a weekend of reflection, renewal, and relationship building. With...
View Article“This Is Civity” Radio Show Podcast
TWI grantee Civity has launched the Civity Radio Show Podcast series to explore different aspects of building civity — civity framed as people working across divides to address civic challenges rooted...
View ArticleRepost: The Tactics of Trust
This article was first published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. We wanted to repost this article because we like how it walks people through the processes they use and how they are linking...
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