INSIGHT
Emergent Learning in Action: Highlights from PEAK’s Member Survey
Earlier this year, we asked about your experience as a PEAK member. And your feedback has helped us to envision how PEAK can evolve, enrich, and support our members as change agents. Dive into the top four takeaways from the survey to learn what matters most to our community and how PEAK is expanding its offerings to best help you to grow as a best-in-role and best-in-field philanthropy professional.
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ANNOUNCEMENT
Early Registration Is Open For PEAK2023
The PEAK community is reuniting May 7–10, 2023 in Baltimore! For our first in-person annual convening since 2019, we are excited to debut new ways of gathering that invite you to join us on a collective emergent learning journey toward more equitable, effective grantmaking.
Over three days, we’ll focus on our Learn, Share, Evolve Principle, lift up stories and insights from across the PEAK community, and explore ways that members are leaning into each of our five Principles to be activated change agents.
Be there, be inspired, and be a vital part of our movement to transform philanthropy.
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JOURNAL
Transforming Philanthropy Through Emergent Learning
A must-read from our recent Journal: Our editors teamed up to define the concepts, qualities, and practices of emergent learning, and a vision for operationalizing it throughout the sector—encouraging us to be adaptive, inclusive, transparent, vulnerable, and curious.
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Explore the complete Journal. Members, log in to download the issue as a PDF or access the entire online version.
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SPONSORED INSIGHT
The Right Grant Metrics and KPIs to Report Your Grants Impact
WizeHive shares how to select the right key performance indicators that can best help you to measure a grant’s impact over time and empower your grantees to better serve the communities you care about.
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JOURNAL
Reflections From Our Guest Editors
Working in close collaboration, Journal guest editors and PEAK staff develop and produce each issue—and it’s always an emergent learning journey. In our recent Community Conversation, Satonya Fair spoke with Melanie Matthews and Shantelice White, who each shared stories of their volunteer role. “It was exhilarating, it was terrifying, and it was such a good experience,” Shantelice recalled. And as Melanie shared, the process was an exercise in trust and teamwork: “You have to have trusting relationships because otherwise it’s hard to be vulnerable.”
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ANNOUNCEMENT
Our New President’s Advisory Council
We are excited to announce PEAK's inaugural President’s Advisory Council. Formed as a continuation of our 25th anniversary committee, the council will advise President and CEO Satonya Fair on topics of her discretion to vision, develop, evaluate, and evolve resources, programs, and initiatives.
In 2022–23, the council will focus on envisioning and championing grants management as a core function required to operationalize excellence through equitable, effective grantmaking practices.
Under Satonya’s leadership, the council will create a new grants management staff structure which positions this function strategically and maps a career trajectory all the way to the C-suite. The council will also support members in advocating for themselves while directly being in conversation with CEOs and executives to share this vision with the sector.
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GOVERNANCE
Bylaws Update
In October, the PEAK board of directors approved changes to our bylaws in an effort to streamline language, ensure consistency, and best position PEAK for the future. The revisions include updated board committee charters and language regarding virtual participation, conflicts of interest, membership eligibility, and convey voting rights to our Consultant Members.
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Welcome, New Organization Members
Baltimore Children & Youth Fund
Community Foundation for
Southern Arizona
Desert Healthcare District
& Foundation
Kataly Foundation
Omidyar Network
Stitching SED Fund
The Winnipeg Foundation
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Our Gratitude
Thank you to Boettcher Foundation, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, and Stupski Foundation for their unrestricted grants.
Thank you to Lumina Foundation and Conrad N. Hilton Foundation for their matching gifts.
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CHAPTER SPOTLIGHT
PEAK Northeast Fosters Sector Collaborations That Move the Field Forward
Over the last few years, the PEAK Northeast chapter has been collaborating with the Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC)—a historical research center for the study of philanthropy located in Sleepy Hollow, New York. For example, RAC in February participated in a webinar on foundation records management, information governance, and archives. In addition, RAC administered a survey of PEAK Northeast member organizations about the current state of information governance in the field. That panel conversation was a major collaborative effort that also involved PEAK Southwest and Philanthropy New York. Collaborations like this one are critical for moving the philanthropy sector forward!
We are excited to share RAC’s recently published Proceedings from the June 12, 2019 Meeting: Advancing Foundation Archives: Advocacy, Strategies, and Solutions. This report details key insights from a confab of archivists, grants managers, foundation leaders, information specialists, historians, and legal experts to confront a new and daunting challenge: how to collect, preserve, and provide access to the rising tide of born-digital records created by foundations.
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VOLUNTEER
Call For Insights: Write for PEAK!
Throughout the year, PEAK Insights uplift voices, expertise, and perspectives from across our community around operationalizing equity-centered, values-driven grantmaking practices. We invite members and partners to share your thought leadership in 2023. Learn how to send an article proposal to PEAK and how our communications team will work with you to develop your contribution.
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PEAK in Community
Enjoy the latest news about our sector partnerships and how PEAK is advocating for more equitable grantmaking practices at conferences, convenings, and community conversations.
Programs and Knowledge Director Lita Ugarte Pardi and Community Knowledge Manager Chantias Ford copresented at Philanthropy Northwest's 2022 Illuminate Virtual Summit. Their session, “Reframing Risk in Grantmaking,” focused on defining risk, addressing myths around risk, and discussing how traditional notions of risk in grantmaking disadvantage smaller and nonprofits led by people who identify as Black, Indigenous, or a person of color.
President and CEO Satonya Fair and Senior Communications Director Betsy Reid attended the Taproot Foundation’s U.S. Pro Bono Summit, connecting with nonprofits and corporate funders around the impact and potential of skilled volunteerism. Sessions focused on rethinking the power dynamics of philanthropy, the impact of leadership buy-in, and continuing to build nonprofit and community trust. Satonya joined Taproot’s Carlton Ford and Greater Washington Community Foundation’s Dawnn Leary for “It's Not About ‘Us’ – Re-orienting the Language and Power in Philanthropy.” View recording here.
Satonya penned “The Myth of Risk: Fear not the dragons, funders” for Blackbaud, queuing up her November 17 webinar, “Are You Stewarding Responsively?” where she’ll delve into PEAK's Steward Responsively Principle, which urges funders to reframe how they see and respond to risk and be empowered to manage rather than mitigate or eliminate risk. Reigister here.
Satonya, Chantias, and Lita participated in a session of the Equitable Evaluation Initiative’s Peer2Peer Nonprofit Collaboratory. The focus was on exploring learning in relation to operationalizing the Equitable Evaluation Framework™ by seeking clarity on the following questions: What does it mean to be a learning organization? What is our role? The role of others? What does this look like? Feel like? The discussion was very fitting given PEAK’s core philosophy of creating an emergent learning community around our Principles for Peak Grantmaking.
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CAREER SUPPORT
The Latest on PEAK’s Job Board
Explore career opportunities from across our member community. Searching for a new team member? PEAK members are invited to add job postings at no cost. Simply log in, complete a brief form, and your post will be added shortly.
Here are a few current opportunities:
- IT Operations Manager | Rasmuson Foundation, Anchorage, AK
- Program Associate, Gender and Reproductive Equity Grantmaking | Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, New York, NY or Washington, DC
- Executive Director | Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy, Grand Rapids, MI
- Engagement and Capacity Building Manager | Center for Science in the Public Interest, Remote
- Program Officer | Woods Fund Chicago, Chicago, IL
- Program Manager | The Colorado Trust, Denver, CO
- Senior Vice President of Programs and Advocacy | Schott Foundation for Public Education, Remote
- Executive Assistant to the CEO | Maine Community Foundation, Ellsworth, ME or Portland, ME
- Grants Management Associate | Walton Personal Philanthropy Group, Denver, CO
- Grants Manager | Coleman Foundation, Chicago, IL
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