Make Sure Your Funding Works
for the People Who Make Nonprofits Work
The Academy offers you an opportunity to transform your leadership in the philanthropic and nonprofit community. Our unique professional development experience will equip you with everything you need to ensure ‘funding that works’ for the people who make nonprofits work. Our premier course, Funding that Works: The Fundamentals of Talent-Investing, is essential for any funder, nonprofit, or intermediary leader who wants to advance equity, effectiveness, and endurance in the social sector.
"
LEIGH HANDSCHUH // The Boston Foundation
Get instant access to
The Academy now!
Our Academy teaches you the Funding that Works Framework – a new mental model that can transform the talent-investing practices in the social sector.
In 12 short video sessions totaling 3 hours, Rusty teaches the Funding that Works Framework, shifting how you lead and manage in your organization. You’ll learn:
- 1Power and Promise: You’ll learn about the value and contributions of the nonprofit workforce and its potential for even greater impact when it has the investment that it needs.
- 2Problem: You’ll get a reframed understanding of the crisis facing the nonprofit workforce, and a diagnosis of its causes and symptoms.
- 3Proposal: You’ll learn the concept of talent-investing, a transformative new approach to leading and managing in philanthropy and nonprofits.
- 4Principles: You’ll tap into the eight key values that directly address the drivers of the problem which will guide and add meaning to talent-investing.
- 5Practices: You’ll learn the eight core practices of talent-investing to help you integrate talent-investing into your work as a funder, nonprofit, or intermediary.
- 6Plan: You’ll get advice, reflection questions, and support so that you leave the course with a concrete plan for taking the first steps to integrate talent-investing into your work.
Each of our courses comes packed with the following materials:
Nonprofits face an urgent and unprecedented workforce crisis which has become the #1 challenge facing the social sector. It isn’t just a nuisance for nonprofit managers and professionals; it makes it exponentially harder for nonprofits – and those who support them – to deliver critical services to our communities. The bottom line: No nonprofit people? No nonprofit programs. Our courses help you understand this problem in a new way, and then become part of the solution!
Are you longing for the day when nonprofit workers are not just surviving, but thriving? When we’ve fixed the system itself, so that we can create equitable, effective, and enduring jobs and workplaces?
The dream of a people-centered nonprofit sector may seem like a distant mirage right now. But when funders, nonprofits, and intermediaries change their attitudes, policies and practices, we can bring it about in reality!
Thankfully, you are not alone in striving toward that day. Our Funding that Works Academy can help you move your organization faster and farther toward that vision through immediate, tangible, everyday actions.
Most academic and professional classes treat issues like organizational strategy, finances, fundraising and human resources as unrelated domains. Our courses break down these silos, and help you see how these disparate dimensions of philanthropic and nonprofit practice can contribute to and benefit from investment in nonprofit people.
Inspiration
To transform your work and advocate for investment in nonprofit people.
Concrete Ideas
For how to support nonprofit people within your sphere of influence.
A Plan of Action
That you custom-build for integration into your work and your context.
Curated Resources
To help you learn more and make the case for talent-investing.
Ongoing Support
Such as discounted rates on coaching, consulting, and community.
Here at Fund the People, we are committed to delivering premium quality professional development experiences. We strive to ensure that each of our courses is:
Accessible and Affordable
Select, purchase, and take your course all right here on the fundthepeople.org site – at your own pace!
Provocative but Practical
Our course sessions tackle topics that have been taboo or under-addressed in the sector. We give a balanced and widely distributed critique that illuminates how our institutions and practices are part of a shared problem, but we can all be part of a collective solution! And we offer not just pie-in-the-sky theory or assertions about the solution, but pragmatic, tangible tactics that can make a difference.
Unique and Engaging
Our sessions are conversational and brief, and are backed by tons of multimedia support materials to give you plenty of extra reading and listening resources.
Excellent and Enjoyable
Our lively course sessions and easy-to-use worksheets were created by Rusty Stahl, who is a passionate advocate of talent-investing.
MORE TO COME
We are launching the Academy with our series of self-paced “fundamentals” course series, starting with our course for Foundation Professionals. From there, we will offer more courses for people in various roles, which will be followed by cohorts, in-person workshops, and more.
Our initial slate of "fundamentals" courses are taught by Rusty Stahl, creator of the Funding that Works framework. A nationally recognized thought-leader on investing in the nonprofit workforce, Rusty coined the phrases "talent-investing" and "talent justice." Stahl was named to The Power and Influence Top 50 List by The NonProfit Times in 2023, and his work has been cited in The New York Times, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Inside Philanthropy, Nonprofit AF, and elsewhere.
Rusty has been developing ideas and practices for investment in the nonprofit workforce for 25 years. He has written and guided extensive research in this area, including Fund the People's signature Talent Justice study, which was created in partnership with the Center for Urban and Racial Equity. As host of Fund the People's podcast, Stahl has created a conversation in the field about talent-investing that has included dozens of funders, nonprofits, government leaders, intermediaries, and scholars. He has delivered advisory services, conference keynotes, cohort experiences, briefings, retreats, and workshops about talent-investing to funders and nonprofits in communities across the country and internationally. He synthesizes the ideas from these activities into Funding that Works courses.
Stahl holds an M.A. in Philanthropic Studies from Indiana University. He began his career as a Program Associate at the Ford Foundation. Rusty subsequently served as founding Executive Director of Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP). After leading EPIP, he was a Visiting Scholar in Residence at NYU's Wagner School of Public Service. At NYU, Stahl developed the national initiative now known as Fund the People, where he serves as Founder, President and CEO.
As he guides you through our Funding that Works courses, Rusty offers up his creative ideas and expertise with his down-to-earth approach, self-deprecating humor, and clear commitment to our sector.
© 2024 Fund The People. All Rights. Reserved.