June 2024: News and Notes from NCFP’s Members and Partners
NCFP strives to connect its members to resources, best practices, and to peer funders. Network News highlights updates from our members and partners, showcasing accomplishments, new approaches or giving areas, innovative ideas, and staff and board transitions, and more.
We encourage our members and parters to email us with news that you would like to be shared.
Remembering Influential Foundation Leader Liz Levitt Hirsch
NCFP is saddened to hear of the death of Liz Levitt Hirsch, longtime leader of the Mortimer & Mimi Levitt Foundation. “Liz played a key role in the development of the venture philanthropy model at the core of the Levitt Foundation’s giving philosophy to strengthen the social fabric of communities through free outdoor concerts. She also championed the Foundation’s decision to spend down its assets of $150 million by 2041,” says the foundation’s announcement.
Imago Dei Foundation Discusses its Gender Equity Seed Fund
Imago Dei Foundation co-founder Emily Neilsen Jones discusses the process for starting a participatory grantmaking experiment in seed funding. Says Nielsen Jones in an Inside Philanthropy article, “Mixing up how you give, to experiment with more proximate approaches like this seed fund, can yield many unforeseen dividends, including a deeper sense of trust and real partnership within your ecosystem, an opportunity for personal growth as you let go of some control, and joy in watching a more participatory process unfold.”
Fred L. Emerson Foundation Announces New Board Leadership
Fred Emerson’s great-granddaughter, Lori Robinson, has been elected as president of the board.
Ford Family Foundation’s New Hire to Build Rural Economic Development Strategies
Carrie Pipinich joins the Ford Family Foundation as a new senior program officer with an interest in “growth in the systems-level work and advocacy for rural Oregon.”
Glick Philanthropies Ventures into Democracy Funding
With more than half a million dollars in grants, Glick Philanthropies seeks to support a healthy democracy. The funders recognized that all of the issue areas they fund are reliant on a well-functioning democracy.
William Penn Foundation Shares Updates on its Strategy Revision
The foundation has engaged its community in surveys and interviews to gather feedback to shape the foundation’s future. Here, they share what they learned from the conversations.