Supporting philanthropy to improve collaboration with community partners
The Forum for Community Solutions believes in partnership and collaboration to bring lasting solutions to communities that face the most pressing challenges. While we focus directly on community members and community-led institutions seeking to make change happen, we also focus on the philanthropic community, and seek to support improvements in philanthropic approaches to collaborating with community.
Advancing Philanthropy
In 2014, we launched a partnership with Neighborhood Funders Group (NFG) to develop learning opportunities and programming for funders designed explicitly to improve the effectiveness of place-based grantmaking. This collaboration is dedicated to fostering a learning exchange regarding behaviors, content and practices that make community change efforts more productive and collaborative for funders, community organizations and community residents in locations in which place-based grantmakers are investing. Out of this work grew Philanthropy Forward, a new leadership fellowship for CEOs of progressive philanthropic institutions. Learn more about it here.
Collective Impact Forum Funder Community of Practice
Since 2014, the Collective Impact Forum has facilitated the Collective Impact Funder Community of Practice (COP), a learning community for funders who want to deepen their understanding of collective impact and improve their practice of catalyzing change through investing in collective impact. The goals of the COP are:
- Networking and building relationships with other collective impact funders
- Learning about the strategies and nuances for funders engaging in collective impact, and how to most effectively support collective impact
- Improving the practice of grantmakers as funders and partners in collective impact
Opportunity Youth Forum Leadership Council
While we work extensively with local community groups in our Opportunity Youth Forum initiative, we also support the opportunity youth movement by bringing together local and national funders twice a year to discuss how their funding impacts the national movement, and to thoughtfully approach the needs of local and national community groups working to improve the lives of young people in the U.S.