Latest news, alerts, and events.
Latest news, alerts, and events.
There are several updates to COVID-19 relief funds that may impact your nonprofit:
You can track these funds and more on our COVID Relief Resources page.
A note from Laurie:
A new reality needs new words. Recently I was asked, “are you open?” A simple question but now with so many meanings and answers. In the midst of this pandemic, we have watched nonprofits close the doors on their physical space but stay open virtually. We have watched as some close their physical space without a clear path to anything virtual and we have watched missions shift space and double down on service delivery no longer hampered by their building infrastructure. For decades when consulting with organizations about their potential capital campaigns I have said to countless board and staff members “you are not building a building – you are expanding or deepening mission.” Indeed it is the mission that happens inside the building that matters, not the building itself. Never have we tested this thought more thoroughly than in this time of COVID-19. I used to joke that our sector had an “edifice complex” because they thought that their buildings made them real.
Well, our missions still exist now even without the buildings that hold us. To be sure, this understanding impacts missions differently. Not having a physical space has been devastating for our arts community as their business models are designed to gather people in a built environment. But it has also been liberating for others. I have heard examples of this in Petersburg, Bethel, Kodiak, and Anchorage where groups who serve our homeless community have “left their space” to work together in real-time outside with the people that need help. Leaving our physical spaces has allowed so many to break long-held assumptions about how we do the work and the work itself and for this, we can all be beneficiaries of this time. It also gives me hope for our missions and for all of us as we take the lessons learned and keep moving forward.
So with all that, I come back to Foraker. Yes, we are open. We have always been open. We never missed a day. And our physical space has been closed and will likely stay that way through the summer. Our reality is that when we reopen our physical space to the public it will not be to “go back” to what was but to move forward into a new reality. This reality is one that hearkens back to a time in Foraker’s life that included a small but mighty workforce in a single space and a powerful team working in many places alongside Alaska’s nonprofits.
Going forward will mean that some staff members do not return to working in the office because, in fact, they are just as effective working from home. It will mean that we will see less permanence and more flexibility with the whole team. It will mean that we will continue to meet our sector where they are (as soon as we can fly safely into communities). It will mean that when we are together we will practice physical distancing and take all the CDC precautions including, but not limited to, wearing masks. It will mean that we will require groups we work with to wear masks (assuming their age and ability allows) to keep our employees and consultants safe. It will mean sadly that we will not let children in our office right now. It will also mean that we will continue to use technology to engage our boards, staff, consultants, and community in new and existing ways to stay connected. And it will mean that we will take this next period of time to understand our roles, responsibilities, and definitions of how we bring people together. We look forward to many more creative ways to exercise our definition of “open” right alongside you.
Thanks to each of you who have reached out and expressed your support. We are continuing to do what we do best – serve Alaska’s nonprofits. Give us a call. We are ready.
Talking about and even doing something about the very real challenges of diversity and equity in the nonprofit sector is not a new topic for us and for many others across the country. And yet, the challenges remain. When I became CEO five years ago, Foraker took an additional step to advance our work by making diversity and equity central tenants in our plans. While we have taken many steps, we are far from where we want to be and where our sector needs to be for lasting change. Still, we have endeavored to bring thoughtful leadership, compelling data, and a range of national experts on the topic to Alaska’s nonprofits to not only keep the conversation going but to incite true reflection and change.
Admittedly we have struggled because often when we talk about this work the first response we get is “just give me a tool.” As a capacity building organization this is not a surprising request because indeed for some of the challenges we face in our sector there are tools – good ones – that make the work easier. In this case, there are certainly a few tools and a few agreed upon components to any plan but the truth is that the best tool is to commit to knowing why diversity matters to your mission, and there is simply not one path or one tool to start or continue that work.
I offer Foraker’s path as an example: Foraker was forged by our understanding that in this state racism and inequity is a lived experience for Alaska’s first people. When defining our ideology, we could have said that our core value was “Alaska” but that would have missed the essence and the energy of our work. We wanted to forever acknowledge where we work – the land we are on, the history and current oppression that is present, the divide that too often still exists between rural and urban Alaska, and the conscious work it takes to effectively work on a mission both with and within communities across Alaska. So we call this value “Urban/Rural/Native/Non-Native.” It says we acknowledge and honor the difference as important. It also reminds us that in the non-Native work there is also an important difference to acknowledge. For this reason, we have and will continue to speak up and use our voice and our privilege like we did last week when we reaffirmed Black Lives Matter.
Importantly, our core values also include “sustainability,” “strategic,” and “collaborative.” Together our core values are the underpinning of every belief and the context to each decision. Our path also brought us to dig more deeply as a team to articulate what these values tell us about our beliefs in this work. These include an understanding that:
I am sharing Foraker’s journey with you today, not because we always get it right or that we don’t have work to do, but for the opposite reason. Every year and every day we have to commit to looking deeper, to asking more, to listening more, and to learning more. That is our path and this is the work – to commit to being on the journey, to holding goals that stretch us and achieving them, and then tackling the next set and the next. Before I came to Foraker, I worked for a remarkable organization that held a vision to end discrimination for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. I learned. I strived. I wrestled with myself. I learned some more. I didn’t wake up every day thinking “today is the day we get there.” But every day I knew we were taking steps toward that vision. I knew and the team knew we were on the journey together. We knew it mattered. It still matters. I knew then and I know now that to begin, to keep going, to make mistakes, and to learn from them is the work regardless of which mission we are serving.
At Foraker we acknowledge that as a capacity builder we must meet people and missions where they are. We talk internally about our work as both “upstream and downstream.” That means that we can do much upstream by engaging in public policy to change the systems and structures and inspire essential conversations on diversity and inequity among our board and staff. At the same time, we must continue to work downstream by providing a variety of services for those who are currently doing the work. An example is our program for new executive directors. In the downstream environment we are not picking who gets those jobs but instead we are present to support the people who have them now. And even in the downstream work we take opportunities to raise issues of racial diversity, gender pay, and many other forms of inequity to move the whole sector forward. Indeed, downstream work does not mean quiet acceptance and acquiescence, it means the work toward equity and change starts in a different place.
As we approach each of these conversations upstream and downstream it is hard to find a meaningful generality that defines our work. However, we consistently come back to at least two ideas. First, your board needs to represent and reflect the community and the mission you serve. And second, your staff, and especially your leadership team, should be not just diverse but welcoming for people of color to stay and thrive in these jobs. This is true even more as we consider the intersection of gender, sexual orientation, and ability.
These are not new ideas. Data tells us that nonprofit experts and nonprofit leaders themselves have been talking about it for years. But we are not making enough headway. In fact, a Boardsource study in 2017 called Leading with Intent, noted that of the 1,700 participants in the study, 27% of them stated they were on boards with an all-white composition. The same study reported that over 60% of nonprofit executives and over 40% of board chairs are dissatisfied with the racial/ethnic diversity of their board. However, fewer than 20% of executives report including demographics as part of their recruitment process. There is plenty of data not just from that study but from others that say the nonprofit sector as a whole has much work to do.
Equally, there are nonprofits focused on specific populations that have appropriate racial/ethnically diverse board and staff. I am thinking about membership organizations like black fraternities and sororities, Hispanic or Korean cultural centers, or the NAACP, etc. But there are thousands more who serve communities of color, or predominantly women, or people who experience a physical or developmental disability, or the LGBTQ communities to name a few that do not see intersectionality in their boards or staff. Again, this is not a check-box solution – this is about acknowledging that until our organizations consciously commit to intersectionality in our board and staff leadership, we are missing the space to do mission better.
While we will continue to acknowledge that no one way or one tool exists to keep us on the path toward diversity and equity as a sector, we understand that this will frustrate some and give others the option they were seeking to opt out. What we will say is that the journey begins with a question – one that invites a group to deeply explore why and how a mission is better served when the board and staff are diverse. To that end, I want to share some resources with you that point out the essential work in front of us. Each board and staff team is in a different place in this process. If you are interested in reading more about the work we need to do in our nonprofit systems and structure, I encourage you to dive into these resources. Many of them are from people we have brought to Alaska and some are new. This is just a start. There is so much more out there because the challenges are widely documented. We are committed to doing more. To bringing you more. To doing better ourselves both board and staff. Join us.
Research on the nonprofit sector’s racial leadership gap:
Articles and tools: A way forward for your organization
The Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act, signed into law today, gives organizations more flexibility and time to spend PPP funds.
Highlights from the Act include:
Although the law has been signed, the SBA and treasury have yet to release updated guidance. We will continue to advocate for nonprofits and keep you updated about the latest developments. Contact us if you have any questions.
A Note from Laurie Wolf, President and CEO, The Foraker Group
The weight of this time in history is beyond measure. And this past week it got impossibly heavier. The murder of George Floyd, piled on other visible racist action against Christian Cooper in Central Park, reminds all of us that injustice is a daily, if not hourly experience for too many people of color. Living through this pandemic, while also a shared experience, is not the same experience. Someone thoughtfully noted, “we are in the same ocean but not the same boat.”
If you entered this phase in our lives and you are elderly and live communally, or you are in an abusive relationship, or you are hungry, or you feared for your child’s safety, or you lost your job and already lived paycheck to paycheck, or you experience historical trauma from disease that decimated your people in its wake, or you are experiencing racism because this virus is labeled as “Asian,” or you are black and you also just watched the vivid displays of racism and murder across our collective screens, then this experience is vastly and incomparably different from anything the rest of us can understand. This virus is doing more than just making people sick and killing them. This virus is exacerbating the vast inequities in our country.
As a Jewish woman I have privilege and I have a different understanding of hatred and violence that has increased in the last many years in Alaska and around the country. I have shared experiences as a woman about safety. But nothing in my experience helps me know the fear, anger, and sadness of black America. I simply do not know. I don’t pretend to know.
Even in this space of not knowing, I have an obligation to use my voice. To stand up and say out loud “Black Lives Matter.” I honor the lives of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Dreasjon “Sean” Reed, George Floyd, Tony McDade, and the countless other black people who have been killed by police officers. I am devastated by this ongoing violence, and the failure of our government to protect black communities is criminal.
In my work I also have the privilege and obligation to live Foraker’s core values which recognize that the indigenous land we live on and the 10,000 years of knowledge that Alaska’s first people live and share every day make all of our lives richer and better. I also get to work across sectors and within the nonprofit sector, which is built on action and hope. I am reminded that every national movement from our past and into our future – civil rights, women’s rights, LGBTQA rights, and children’s rights – came from our sector. We are the birthplace of change. We are the translators from anger and despair to action. What I also know is that the next wave in our work will shift from starting with the institution to starting with the people. We are seeing that today. The momentum around us will create the change we want to see and that we MUST see in this world.
The rapper Killer Mike said this weekend that it’s the time to “plot, plan, strategize, and organize.” At Foraker we are committed to groups of people and organizations who are doing this work, or want to do more of this work, or are starting this work.
June is Pride month, it’s immigrant heritage month, and it’s a reminder that our struggles and liberation are connected. As we work to build, protect, and support our communities, there’s no better tool than our collective power.
To that end, my fear about this time is that we will collectively miss these crisis moments to secure lasting change. We will miss the fissures that are breaking through and further revealing the great inequities that have always been with us. My fear is that we will only fix the surface. Cover up the fissure. Cover over the learning and the seeing, and go back.
We can’t go back. Our organizations or collective actions or missions have immense privilege and potential to take leaps forward. This is the sector of hope and action and from that place I have witnessed in these last many days nonprofit and community leaders across Alaska and America speak with conviction and clarity about the inequity of our systems. I am seeing groups collaborate who didn’t before. I am seeing a reckoning that it is not buildings and offices and places that make mission work but people with shared vision and immense determination. I am seeing Alaska communities come together in peaceful protests. I am seeing the Anchorage Police chief and local government leaders across Alaska stand in solidarity against racism.
I see anger and sadness, but also insight and action.
What I know is at Foraker we will continue to use our voice. We will continue to move forward and find new ways to take action with you. I invite every group to not miss this moment, to ask your team about what going forward means. Ask what do you need to take with you and what can you leave behind that perpetuates inequity in our communities. Foraker has and will continue to ask these questions and to stand beside Alaska’s nonprofits and community leaders to move forward.