Skills for Cities Spring 2021 is dedicated to building the capacity of Midwest nonprofits as they continue to respond to COVID-19, racial inequity, and the digital divide.
Last year we worked through the “why” of our work, asking ourselves “so what?” until we hit our north star. We work towards alleviating inequality by building the capacity of social change organizations fighting for equity through skilled volunteerism by partnering with companies, the largest and most sustainable source of pro bono expertise. Our 2020-2022 …
[There is] this narrative of ‘This is not who we are,’ when a lot of us, and I think a lot of folks from marginalized communities – Black, Indigenous folks, etc. – are saying, ‘This is exactly who we are, who we have been.’ I think about it like a twelve step program where you cannot really heal and change if you don’t go through the first step, which is to admit you have a problem, and we just haven’t done that. We as a nation just have not acknowledged that we have a problem here. This is who we are.
There’s been an intense focus on getting back to normal, but what this year and our Pro Bono Perspectives guests have highlighted is that normal is not okay and we don’t want to go back there. That to me is the light that is shining through the cracks: we are coming out of 2020 with a new and clear mandate for social and racial justice and a renewed sense of purpose.
It’s really important for those of us in a position of power – as a funder with nonprofit organizations especially – to be very transparent about it and not allow it to be a barrier for meaningful partnership. We’re not going to have the impact that we want to have if it’s us telling you exactly how we want you to run programs for us; it will be far more fruitful for us to have a conversation about the outcomes we seek to achieve – ideally together – and then to think about resources we have or you have and hopefully align on the impact we can have together.
As COVID-19 cases surge, so does the urgency of basic needs in our most vulnerable communities. Food, work, housing, healthcare, and more are at risk for many.
How do we put the [communities] in the driver’s seat? When we’re investing our time and our resources and our energy, how are we shifting the power that may have sat with funders who might have pre-determined what those criteria were, and create a new set of criteria around investments?
Pro Bono Week 2020 came at a time of unprecedented difficulty, but in spite of that, it produced some of the most inspiring – and most necessary – cross-sector collaborations we’ve ever witnessed.
As the second wave of COVID-19 surges, so does the urgency of needs in our most vulnerable communities, which have been disproportionately impacted by the resultant economic instability. Basic needs – food, work, housing, health – are at risk for many. Common Impact is proud to partner with companies who have been leveraging their unique assets and …
I don’t think that any foundation has the right to go into a community to say, ‘This is what needs to be here and how you need to be doing your work,’ when they’re not from that community and don’t have relationships with that community. It’s just about trust. The least that a foundation can do is move funding and support nonprofits in a holistic way, understanding that there’s no price tag that can be put on the interventions and services that are being offered.
