The Foraker Group

Celebrate with us!

Celebrating anniversaries, unlike birthdays, are often fraught with date possibilities. In new or young love, an anniversary may be marked by the month rather than a year, and in other relationships there are a number of possibilities – the first date, the date of the engagement, or the date of a marriage. Nonprofits don’t differ as we have so many date options to call our anniversary. We have the moment the idea was conceived, the date the mission was drafted, the first official board meeting, or even the date of federal recognition. These dates for some, including Foraker, have almost a decade from conception to formal recognition, so picking one perfect date is in the eye of the beholder.

We have chosen this moment to mark our 25th anniversary as it coincides with the year we held our first formal board meeting and the year we publicly launched Foraker’s original programming.

Knowing that this milestone moment was on the horizon, I have spent much time thinking about the last 25 years. Sure, this also marks my own 25 years of life and that of a few of our current team and board members who have been with us from the beginning. But this milestone is so much more than that. Milestone moments like this have a funny way of feeling like they happened just a few days ago – and also a lifetime ago. We’ve been exploring different ways to tell the story—timelines, lists of people, services, products, and partnerships, and so many wonderful personal reflections. It’s been fun to revisit all those memories and connections, and I hope you will take a look at our anniversary highlights and share your own reflections, too.

For me, the most meaningful way to look back is through the lens of why. Why did we define our work in a certain way or highlight a specific delivery mechanism? Why did we create a tool, resource, class, or opportunity? Why did we choose to lead and when did we choose to follow? Why did we partner with certain people or groups at a specific moment in time?

If you know Foraker, you know we are intentional. We have a “why” for every major decision we have made—even when the reason was to make a mistake so we could learn from it. I believe that intentionality has shaped our work in ways that set us apart. Many organizations create resources and programs to support the nonprofit sector, but what makes Foraker unique is that you can trace consistent threads through everything we have built.
Those threads mark our centering of relationships at the heart of every decision, and living our definition of sustainability, core values, our theory of change, and our documented core beliefs. They connect our work across 25 years and remind us why we do what we do, which ultimately is to strengthen mission and people resilience, create momentum and advancement of systems change and mission impact, expand access to civic engagement, promote the positive power of philanthropy, and contribute to the civic life that makes our democracy stronger.

Sure, we knew some things when we started. We knew what was core and where we could adapt. We knew that leading with a visionary mindset would help us consistently provide understanding and clarity about the world while ensuring we were ready to act with agility for what came next. We knew listening brought learning – every time. And we always knew it was never about us. It was and will continue to be about you.

So, as I reflect on the past 25 years, I don’t want to miss this moment to look outward and reflect on the game-changing and sometimes life-altering ways people have invited us to share their experiences, goals, and aspirations. The ripples of these interactions run deep across our state and show up in every person and every entity that we have engaged with.

Our work has taken us into quiet soul-searching rooms that held tears and spoken truth and hard realities. It has taken us into one-of-a-kind gatherings that changed lives in their wake. Again and again, in big rooms and in one-on-one connections, it has been our honor to walk alongside so many doing so much good in our world. Each individual moment in a class, facilitation, or conversation has been a gift, but the lasting impact is greater than any one of those moments.

Together, we have set a tone full of possibilities of what it means to grow capacity alongside a myriad of missions. We have supported each group to hold and own their ideas and ways forward while also doubling down on the importance and strength of support. We have offered kindness through truth telling. We have prided ourselves on offering simplicity amid complexity and showing that slowing down and taking enough time to consider a strategic step is more valuable than a rush to just do something. We have stayed accountable to moving from research to action again and again by not jumping into the latest fad or distraction but also by staying open to adaptation and change. And, we hope we have consistently conveyed that reaching beyond a single institution is the only way to achieve any mission. These are anniversary moments worth celebrating.

While I could reflect on so many things in this moment, I find myself thinking about how one of our founders recently reflected that “just as it’s hard to picture Denali without Foraker to its left, it’s hard to imagine a time when The Foraker Group was not a part of our civic landscape. It’s helped our state and the nonprofit sector itself to see the important role it plays in the well-being of our people and communities.” This got me thinking about some of the things we have created that are just part of everyday life now for so many.

For example, when we started only one standard described nonprofit sustainability – having enough money. Now, our sustainability model has been embraced to the degree that many can’t even remember that once it was considered as just having enough money. Remember, too, when we started there was no Pick.Click.Give., no Financial Shared Services, no Alaska Funders Directory nor an Alaska Board Match nor an Alaska Nonprofit Jobs Board. There was no notion of the complexity of pre-development from the organizational perspective, nor any acknowledgement or data about the economic value of Alaska’s nonprofits, nor the existence of the gender pay gap in the sector, nor a benchmark for nonprofit wage and benefits. Truly, when we started, there was not even a fundamental understanding about why investing in the business of nonprofits was important or even what capacity building was let alone how to activate nonprofit voices to engage in the kind of systems change that public policy advocacy generates. This was all new, once upon a time, not so long ago.

These tools and resources and so many more remain important today, but the impact is far greater. Combined, they have elevated the importance of Alaska’s nonprofits in our economy, in the ways that every community across Alaska works, and in the lives of individuals as part of our collective civic life.

Together, on this anniversary we can celebrate that over the last 25 years we have elevated our collective value and importance as a sector. We have said with certainty that the work of nonprofits is worthy of consideration, reflection, and investment. Together, we have created an ecosystem where people feel proud to work and volunteer for a nonprofit. Together, we have laid the foundation for so many who will come after us. Together, we are ready for what comes next.

Happy anniversary to all of us.

With gratitude,
Laurie