Join the Talent Justice Pledge

We invite you to sign the Talent Justice Pledge as a public commitment to intentionally investing in an equitable, effective, and enduring nonprofit workforce within your sphere of influence over the next year.

You can sign the pledge on behalf of either yourself or an organization. It is open to signatures from nonprofits, funders, and intermediaries that support the field. “Investing” in this case does necessarily equate with providing funding. To learn more visit (new website).

Thank you for starting this journey with us! If you have any questions or feedback about the pledge, please email info@fundthepeople.org.

The Talent Justice Pledge

I/we pledge to drive equity, effectiveness, and endurance in the nonprofit workforce by proactively investing in nonprofit people.

Toward this end, I commit to these 5 practices over the next year:

Listen, learn, and seek to understand the specific challenges facing the nonprofit workforce in my/our organization (nonprofits), grantee organizations (funders), and/or constituents (intermediaries).

This will allow me/us to be aware, and responsive to, the need for and value of investing in the nonprofit workforce. This includes bringing a clear-eyed, intersectional racial equity lens to all my/our talent-investing efforts, to ensure that nonprofit work is accessible and sustainable for people across lines of race, gender, ethnicity, class, age/generation, ability, and other diverse dimensions of the workforce.

Educate fellow staff and board members about why it’s essential to invest in the nonprofit workforce.

This may begin with sharing what was discussed at the Summit, including lessons from current reform efforts. It should include a real assessment of what we've learned about the needs within our organization (nonprofits), grantees (funders), and/or constituents (intermediaries). It may also include the circulation and discussion of new research; bringing in speakers; participating in webinars and courses, etc.

Increase talent-investments now where possible. I/we will immediately start efforts to integrate talent-investing and talent justice into my/our leadership, management, and related practices (budgeting, fundraising, grantmaking, governance, etc.).

This may include free or modestly priced tactics like publicly recognizing the hard work of the staff; creating more internal feedback loops between managers and direct-reports; or providing one-time end-of-year bonuses.

Work toward larger, longer-term investments. This could include planning and organizing for systematic changes.

For nonprofits, this could include efforts such as: adding the goal of becoming a ‘great workplace’ into our strategic plan; adding salary increases into budget projections; or revising board member and job descriptions so that board members are responsible for investing in the CEO who reports to them, and the CEO is responsible for investing in their direct-reports, and so forth. For funders, this could focus on shifting grantmaking policies and priorities to offer funds that pay for the costs of grantees’ staffing and people-systems. For intermediaries, this could include shifting how we talk about staffing issues when we teach DEI, governance, finances, fundraising, grantmaking, etc.

Publicly champion talent-investing and talent justice.

I/we will speak out and organize against practices that directly undermine nonprofit workers’ rights or reinforce inequities in the sector. I/we will use my/our platform to lift up the need for talent-investing and the significant value it can offer nonprofit workers, organizations, and funders.