Background

The Partnership for Equity (PFE, formerly The Washington Area Partnership for Immigrants and The Common Ground Fund) is a new collaboration between philanthropic organizations and representatives of key local jurisdictions who share a vision for equity, access, and opportunity for immigrant communities and other communities of color seeking social justice.

The Partnership advances its mission of strengthening the Washington metropolitan region by focusing its efforts on those who, due to race, ethnicity or economic status, lack access to opportunity. We accomplish this by supporting emerging leaders through grants to nonprofit organizations that engage our region’s diverse communities. Our goal is to empower each through advocacy, operational effectiveness, organizing, research, public awareness to become fully involved in the economic, social, and civic life of our community.

Grants and Opportunities

There are currently no grant opportunities available through the Partnership for Equity.

Recent Activities

There are more than 50 foundations and government agencies in the Greater Washington region operating various types of capacity-building grantmaking programs. Each of these programs independently strives to strengthen the ability of nonprofits to achieve greater performance and impact. However, limited information exists about the degree to which public and private funders are supporting capacity-building and the strategies they're using. This "knowledge gap” inhibits collaboration, informed decision-making, and greater impact.

The Partnership for Equity sponsored a two-day convening of local public and private funders that currently fund capacity-building to learn about their respective capacity-building funding strategies as well as to share lessons learned, problem-solve and generate a regional action plan for collaborative work.

The sessions brought together more than 30 government and philanthropic representatives from across the region, resulting in an initial course of action to increase networking, coordination and collaboration. Participants agreed to undertake the following activities over the course of three to six months:

Learning/Networking: Thirteen funders agreed to meet monthly to discuss their respective capacity-building work and related micro/macro issues (e.g., lack of common capacity-building language and guiding principles, increasing burden funders place on nonprofits seeking capacity- building funding, etc.).

Action: Five funders agreed to explore the viability of developing a common grantmaking application form for capacity-building funding and if viable take steps to institute.

Read the notesfrom the September 2008 meeting HERE.
Read the notes from the October meeting HERE.
Download the Asset Mapping of Greater Washington Capacity-Building Funders document HERE.

Publications

Visit our website's Library to read/download reports and issue briefs published by The Common Ground Fund and The Washington Partnership for Immigrants. You can request hardcopy versions by calling The Community Foundation at (202) 955-5890 or by email at info@cfncr.org. All publications are free. MORE

Link to Learn More

Grantmakers for Effective Organizations
www.geofunders.org

Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees
www.gcir.org

National Committee on Responsive Philanthropy
www.ncrp.org

Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers
www.washingtongrantmakers.org

For More Information