Participatory philanthropy, according to the new Participatory Philanthropy Toolkit from the Fund for Shared Insight is defined as: A philanthropy practice that explicitly includes the participation of community members with lived expertise in a relevant issue area (non-funders) and shifts power from traditional foundation decision makers to participants during any part of the philanthropy process … Continued
At the Peter & Elizabeth Tower Foundation, strengthening organizational capacity is a central tenant in our grantmaking. We recognize that our communities need strong organizations, leaders, and teams in order to deliver the best services to the populations we are interested in supporting. We also know that organizations are dealing with significant challenges in the … Continued
Since November 2020, representatives from several grant partner organizations have met monthly to discuss diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in their work. This group, convened by Program Officers Chuck Colston and Megan MacDavey, has blossomed into a network that supports and learns from one another. After many months of meeting by Zoom, this group finally … Continued
After three cycles and over $1.6 million dollars awarded to 120 agencies, we are sunsetting our COVID-19 grants. Even though the pandemic is not yet over, a new day is dawning for nonprofits that requires our funding to change too. We are moving on from our COVID-19 funding category and embedding the lessons learned throughout our … Continued
For the past couple of years, the Tower Foundation has been exploring ways to bring one of our values to life: diverse voices. The Foundation describes what valuing diverse voices looks like as: We listen to and learn from those with different points of view and perspectives. More than that, we seek to be proximate … Continued
A little over a year ago, the Tower Foundation began to use a racial equity lens to reflect on our work: How can we be a more equitable grantmaker? (You can read more about this journey here.) While we focus on young people living with intellectual disabilities, substance use disorders, learning disabilities, and mental health … Continued
Last October, we wrote a blog about the Advisory Team of young people with intellectual disabilities that helped us review grants from the fall 2019 grant cycle. In that blog, we focused on the creation of the team, the process of coming together to review grants, and the great feedback that we got. The Advisory Team … Continued
Staff post guidelines. Organizations apply. Staff review requests. Staff ask clarifying questions. Staff invite full proposals from organizations. Board approves or declines proposals. Repeat. We are a well-oiled grantmaking machine. We’ve switched things up here and there over the years (e.g., reduced the number of questions we ask, added a clarification call, tightened the timeline), … Continued
I am reminded daily by the amazing grant partners I get to work with that there is huge demand by nonprofits to build their capacity to be stronger, more sustainable organizations, but that there are not enough resources to do so. Ninety-five percent of the organizations that responded to a Tower Foundation survey in 2016 … Continued
What applicants thought about applying to the Tower Foundation in 2018 I can’t say it enough: we love feedback. Don’t get me wrong – some of it is not easy to hear. But we truly appreciate feedback from applicants and grant partners in all its challenging, validating, and sometimes surprising forms. It helps us … Continued
