The Foraker Group

Are you ready? This year promises to be one in which your full participation will be in high demand. Not only is it a national and local election year that by all current indications will do more to divide us than unite us, but we are also bringing with us the persisting challenges of 2023 as we continue to reckon with workforce challenges, declining funding, and significant leadership transitions in our board and staff spaces. I wrote last month about our superpower as a sector to hold on to our belief that everything will turn out for the best, and I am digging deep into that place as I prepare with you for 2024.

We are ready for you with tools and resources to keep you focused, motivated, and connected. We rolled out some incredible new tools in 2023 like our Alaska Board Match to help you engage as a volunteer leader or to find your next board champion and our Alaska Funders Directory to help you focus your corporate and foundation searches to make the most strategic requests to support your mission. Along with those two tools, we have seen a surge in the use of our Jobs Board as shifting in the workforce has many looking for the right next person. And, also, more of you are visiting our Pre-Development Toolkit as an increase in infrastructure funding makes its way to Alaska.

At the same time, we have been ramping up our internal systems to meet the demand for Leadership Transition services, From Bias to Belonging engagements, and Financial Shared Services.

Leadership Transition has helped nonprofits of all sizes, mission areas, and geographies navigate change while maintaining mission continuity. We are the only service in Alaska that centers our approach on an organization’s culture, while leaning heavily into the strengths and aspirations of the board and staff, for a customized approach to each effort. And, our Foraker workforce is growing and becoming more diverse, which is exciting and requires intentional efforts both with those already on our team and those who will be joining us in 2024.

From Bias to Belonging is a strengths-based approach where everyone is welcome and where shame and blame have no place in our work. We are all about fostering a workplace where we are called into the conversations and are part of every improvement effort.

We know that part of a shifting workforce is a desire for more economies of scale in the way we work. This month we will welcome a large batch of new financial consultants to complement our already amazing team in Financial Shared Services. This is a focused effort on our part to meet your needs for excellent and consistent accounting and payroll services while also addressing your system clean-up and maintenance projects.

Building these resources and services is just the beginning of all the ways we are ready to support your mission in 2024 to thrive and not just survive. For a full listing of our services, our website is always a great spot to bookmark, and be sure to check out our class calendar, which is updated quarterly with new and renewed ways to learn and grow together with nonprofit people across Alaska.

From our beginning, Foraker has been dedicated to advancing the voice of the nonprofit sector in public policy and research. 2024 will bring new research to practice for you to use both in your everyday decision-making and in advancing your public policy issues. We will start with a new way of providing you with nonprofit salary and benefits data through a partnership with the other nonprofit state associations in the Northwest. This year, five states (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska) will work together to provide a larger dataset and more ways to compare your salary and benefits data. We are excited about this potentially enhanced tool kit.

2024 will also be the year we update our Nonprofit Economic Impact Report. This invaluable tool quantifies how essential all your work is to Alaska’s economy. Our goal is for every Alaska policymaker to fundamentally understand that the role of the nonprofit sector is not just “nice” but indispensable to making Alaska work best. We are a strong and equal partner to state, local, tribal, and federal governments, and we are doing our part for the people and places of Alaska. We will have more ways for you to use this tool, and we can’t wait to hear how you put this research into action. We also plan to update our gender pay gap information this year, as well as continue our work to close the pay gap in Alaska. We have a few more fun things in store for you, but you will just have to stay tuned to hear about them as we make our way through the year.

Part of our role as the voice of Alaska’s nonprofits is to prioritize our advocacy efforts. You can find our priorities update for 2024 here. The bottom line to all of these priorities is this: Alaska’s nonprofits are essential partners in our economy and our way of life.

As always, we want to be part of a solution, not just lend our voice to problems. We are ready with a list of ways to make each situation better or even fix it for good. We understand the solutions will come through dialog and action, and we are committed to each journey no matter how long it takes.

If standing up for your mission is new to you, or if you would like to brush up on your advocacy skills, we have a class for you – Strategic Advocacy, When to Jump In and Why It Matters. The next session is Thursday, January 11. We will tackle the changing role of nonprofits in public policy advocacy and share some tools that will help your organization become more strategic, not just in responding to the latest news, but in setting your public policy priorities.

I want to emphasize as we always do and that we know to be true – we are stronger and more effective when we work together. So, thank you in advance for joining us either to grow your capacity or to stand for your mission with your advocacy voice.

We are ready. Join us.