Together, through your financial donations, your comments, your repostings, and your written submissions, we have built a community that few could have envisioned when we started this enterprise 18 years ago. And, as our nation and our communities traverse what can only be described as perilous times, we need your continued support. We hope, as the end of the year approaches, that you will donate generously to support the continued growth of the NPQ network, which provides a platform that builds a stronger ecosystem for all of our efforts.
2017 was a year where philanthropy and nonprofits had to move quickly to find the most critical leverage points—where they would be best placed to do the most good and to quickly size up who else they should work with. It has been a year of Black college presidents and sports figures refusing to participate in historic rituals that concealed benign neglect (and worse); of refugee resettlement organizations bravely declaring their independence from state grandstanding that would have excluded whole ethnicities from our shores; and of corporations coming to understand that their use of money as advertisers and investors would be exposed and scrutinized by activists on the environment, on gender equity, and on private prisons. Waves of change in public discourse and policy came fast and furious, as did the varied and extraordinary shapes of community response.
It would be hard in the midst of all of that to sit and rest, and NPQ did not.
In the midst of all of that often brave and nimble activity on your part, we worked hard to help inform you.
- How are the sectors working together to resist the passing and implementation of regressive policy?
- What kinds of collaboratives are working on issues of inequality and wealth-sharing economies?
- What on earth is the connection between Big Pharma and patient advocacy groups?
- How is digital media being used to change hearts and minds about the degree of gender violence still embedded in polite society?
- How does our own lack of diversity and gender equity in leadership support that unhappy landscape in the larger community, and what must we do about it?
- What does it mean that so much money is now flowing through donor-advised funds, and should that matter to you as a raiser of funds?
- Are you blocking your own organizational talent and governance pipeline—and how can you stop?
- Would it really matter to the sector if the Johnson Amendment were eliminated?
- What does it mean that more and more of the money that makes up this country’s philanthropy comes from a new plutocracy that likes to make “big bets,” sometimes on untested and unwelcome endeavors in such basic areas as public education?
What does all of this mean for the notions of beloved community, peace, justice, and equity, and what can nonprofits, philanthropy and, indeed, the larger realm of civil society do about any of it? A lot.
NPQ is here to help you push at the current boundaries of those realities even when those conversations are difficult.
Please consider including NPQ in your giving as we end this eventful year and head into another. NPQ needs your support to survive and build the nonprofit community media we so desperately need.
If you want to make a challenge to other readers/potential contributors today, please do so here and leave a message about the terms of that challenge. All challenges should be over $500.
