About

Our mission is to maximize investment in the nonprofit workforce. 

We envision a nonprofit sector that is equitable, effective, and enduring.

• Equitable:  Working conditions that are accessible, appealing, and supportive for all who wish to serve, including Americans across lines of race, gender, class, national origin, ability, age and generation.
• Effective:  A sector that recognizes and respects nonprofit workers, both paid and unpaid, as the force that creates, sustains, and grows nonprofit strategy, capacity, and program impact.
• Enduring: The systems needed to support the wellbeing, economic realities, retention, advancement, and sustainability of nonprofit leaders and workers -- individually and collectively, for the present and for the long-haul.    

We influence the attitudes and behaviors of funders and fundraisers, in order to ensure widespread adoption of talent-investing  across the sector. Talent-investing is the intentional deployment of capital to support and develop nonprofit leaders and workers.

We achieve these changes through our three-part strategy of making the case, equipping for action, and organizing for widespread adoption of talent-investing.

• Making the Case: Providing cogent logic, cold hard numbers, and compelling stories that demonstrate the urgent need for and significant value of investing in the nonprofit workforce.
• Equipping for Action: Offering guidance, intellectual resources, and peer-support to help leaders implement talent-investing practices in new and preexisting organizations.
• Organizing: Building a network of relationships among champions who are willing to support one another and are able to mobilize individually and collectively for the cause of talent-investing.

Since Fund the People began, we’ve laid the groundwork for a transformation of the field changes through the following deliverables:

• Thought-Leadership: Through both public and behind-the-scenes influence activities, we've driven a reframing of the problem facing the nonprofit sector. For decades the problem was framed as a deficit of leaders. We reframed. the problem as a chronic deficit of investment in the nonprofit workforce. Moving from problem to solutions, we've developed actionable ideas, practical tools, and innovative practices. We've delivered these through our unique podcast, speaking engagements, and other platforms. 
• Tools: We've built a robust toolkit of original, freely-available resources to help funders and nonprofits make the case and test-out talent-investing practices.
• Research: Our original research has established baseline data on how much foundation funding goest toward supporting grantee staff; examined how funders and nonprofits can invest in intersectional racial equity in the nonprofit workforce; and gathered data on the value that foundations can create by investing in grantee staff.  
• Education and Training: We help social sector leaders understand why and how to invest in the nonprofit workforce through our conference presentations, workshops,  funder briefings, retreats, and other vehicles. We've piloted a set of original online courses that will anchor our Funding that Works Academy (coming late 2023). 

We were founded in 2014 with support from The Kresge Foundation. Since then, multiple crises have made sustainable staffing the #1 issue facing nonprofits. Our launch took place after nearly two years of research and development at NYU's Wagner School of Public Service. Our work was inspired by Generating Change, a research effort at Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP) in partnership with Putnam Consulting. Further, we were inspired by participation in a 2011 White House Forum on Nonprofit Leadership, and through participation in the Nonprofit Workforce Coalition that led to the Forum.

Headquarters

Fund the People is headquartered in the historic City of Beacon in New York's stunning Hudson Valley, where we are part of the BeaHive co-working space. With this as our base, we work remotely with staff, consultants, and colleagues across the U.S. 

Parent Organization

Fund the People is a project of Community Partners, a Los Angeles-based 501(c)(3) organization that acts as a fiscal sponsor for us and many other nonprofit and civic projects. Click here to view Fund the People's profile in Community Partners website.

Finances

Click here to find financial information for Community Partners, including audited financials. (Note: In the most recent available audited financials from 2021, search the PDF for "Talent Philanthropy Project", the original name of Fund the People).