Nationwide donor community celebrated for modeling how to quickly resource social justice
movement groups and build grassroots power rooted in humility and solidarity.
WASHINGTON, DC – At a time when hostile political environments, rising costs and professional burnout are challenging many nonprofit’s ability to survive, the resource mobilizers at the Solidaire Network stand out as a model for urgently and ethically providing critical resources to community-led social justice groups.
That is why the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) is honoring the group with its 2023 “Mover and Shaker” Impact Award for Bold Peer Organizing. Their collective vision of radical giving invites other donors into a practice of transforming their own relationships to power and wealth.
“Solidaire’s donor engagement and activism through education influences not just foundations and institutional donors, but also individual high net worth donors who are increasingly having a greater say in how groups are funded,” said NCRP Executive Director Aaron Dorfman.
Doria Robinson of Urban Tilth, a Solidaire Network movement partner. Credit: Brooke Anderson Photography
Over the last five years, the network has moved over $36 million to grassroots organizations, prioritizing long-term partnerships with frontline movements engaged in intersectional, diverse and innovative work to build power and create new systems rooted in solidarity and collective action. It deeply believes and invests in the power of those with a legacy of resistance, especially Black and Indigenous leadership. Last year, 61% of its overall grantmaking went towards Black-led organizations and a quarter of the Movement Infrastructure funding went towards Indigenous-led organizations.
“We model our solidarity with movements by moving money quickly and boldly, and meeting our partners in their various forms of development and growth,” said former NCRP Board Member and current Solidaire Executive Director Rajasvini Bhansali. “We are honored to follow the trusted guidance of movement leadership and movement elders as we work together to transform society so that every community has the resources to flourish.”
Solidaire is one of five honorees that will be honored on October 18 in Los Angeles, CA at the 2023 IMPACT Awards. The biennial celebration of philanthropy’s best actors will take place at the 2023 CHANGE Philanthropy Unity Summit, a three-day conference that looks to create a diverse and safe space to gather and deepen individual and institutional practices that advance equity with an intersectional lens and community at the center.
Past winners of NCRP’s “Mover and Shaker Award” include the the Four Freedoms Fund, Unbound Philanthropy, and the Foundation for Louisiana.
“Urgently Resourcing Movements & Actively Organizing Donors”
NCRP’s 2023 Mover and Shaker Award for Bold Peer Organizing Award is given every two years to a funder that centers their work on the needs of excluded and impacted communities, leveraging their expertise and convening power to move additional resources to support advocacy, organizing, and civic engagement.
Solidaire certainly fits that description. Founded in 2013, the community of donor organizers actively mobilize quickly to get critical resources to the frontlines of social justice movements. Members look to make an impact with work rooted in a firm belief that the most innovative solutions are borne from those with a legacy of resistance.
Solidaire Network invests in under-resourced communities and geographies and uses an ecosystem funding approach, since robust movements require a variety of formations and tactics. They aim to foster a culture of collaboration over competition by bringing funding to clusters of organizations, LLCs and collectives. They listen to movement partners and ask who else in the area should be funded.
NCRP’s VP and Chief External Affairs Officer Russell Roybal hopes that other grantmakers will look to examples set by funders like Solidaire when trying to figure out how to be responsive to the communities we all serve.
“The Impact Awards continuously reminds philanthropy that entities like Solidaire are modeling, in real time, some of the best practices the sector needs,” said Roybal. “Grantmakers can turn to them and other honorees to see how a better way of resourcing non-profits and other community institutions is not just possible, but urgently needed, right now. “
Click here to read more about Solidaire’s work and why they were chosen to be NCRP’s 2023 “Mover and Shaker” Impact Award for Bold Peer Organizing.
ABOUT NCRP
The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) has served as philanthropy’s critical friend and independent watchdog since 1976. We work with foundations, non-profits, social justice movements and other leaders to ensure that the sector is transparent with, and accountable to, those with the least wealth, power and opportunity in American society.
Our storytelling, advocacy, and research efforts, in partnership with grantees, help funders fulfill their moral and practical duty to build, share, and wield economic resources and power to serve public purposes in pursuit of justice.
ABOUT THE 2023 IMPACT AWARDS
Since 2013, NCRP has awarded 29 Impact Awards to grantmakers in recognition of support, leadership and partnership with grassroots organizations and community leaders around LGBTQ rights, minimum wage, environmental justice, health equity and other critical issues. This year, we will add a fifth, the Pablo Eisenberg Memorial Prize” for Philanthropy Criticism, in honor of NCRP’s founding board chair.
The biennial event has been traditionally held on the last night of Change Philanthropy’s Unity Summit. This year’s edition is slated to be held in Los Angeles, CA, the first in four years to be held in person. (The previous event was held virtually in 2021 due to COVID-19 concerns)
ABOUT THE CHANGE PHILANTHROPY’S UNITY SUMMIT
This year’s Impact Awards — and the 2023 Unity Summit in general — are expected to be the biggest yet, with over 1200 people expected to attend the conference from Oct. 16-19th. The three-day conference will explore strategies for utilizing power to advance philanthropic equity, with emphasis on how philanthropic institutions and individuals working in philanthropy can shift their practice. Across various session types and formats, summit participants will explore shifts in internal organizational practice that consider organizational climate and culture as well as realizing intersectional racial equity within philanthropic organizations; and external practice that examine use of capital, ways of engaging with accountability to community, and methods for leveraging collective power.
For more information on the 2023 Unity Summit, or to explore past Unity Summits, visit https://www.changeunitysummit.info/
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CONTACT(S): Russel Roybal, rroybal[at]ncrp.org
Elbert Garcia, egarcia[at]ncrp.org