A national network of funders supporting strategic, innovative, and effective solutions to homelessness

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At its core, Funders Together exists to connect members to each other, partners, and learning opportunities that will provide and cultivate knowledge and understanding of how philanthropy can collectively advance the movement to end homelessness. We do this by creating programming specific to the needs of funders and utilizing our connections and resources to facilitate meaningful conversation and relationship-building between our members and partners.

Online Learning Opportunities

In 2017, Funders Together hosted 11 webinars with nearly 160 combined attendees. Webinars are an opportunity for Funders Together to highlight timely and important issues and best practices for members, and to provide action items for implementing changes in their work both internally and externally. In 2017, webinars included topics like advocacy and policy, connecting health and housing, youth homelessness, family homelessness, taking solutions to scale, and employment.


In-Person Convenings

In addition to regular webinars, Funders Together hosts two annual events, the Funders Forum and Funders Institute. These events provide networking opportunities for funders locally and nationally and create a more networked environment for members and funders working to end homelessness.

In February 2017, Funders Together hosted its annual Funders Forum in conjunction with the National Conference on Ending Family and Youth Homelessness in Houston, TX. The Forum highlighted learnings from Foundations for Youth Success and provided opportunities for participants to share directly with peers. The Forum also highlighted opportunities and challenges in working with the Administration and Congress. After a panel discussion, participants broke into groups to brainstorm ways that funders could play a role in their community and at the national level. In 2017, the Funders Forum drew 36 funders, representing 27 organizations.

In July 2017, Funders Together hosted its annual Funders Institute in conjunction with the National Conference on Ending Homelessness in Washington, D.C. The Institute continued Funders Together’s work around racial inequity in homelessness for a full-day on Monday. Throughout the conference, Funders Together hosted additional workshops highlighting timely information including policy and advocacy, employment, and intersectional issues like health and criminal justice. The 2017 Funders Institute drew 59 funders from across the country, representing 39 organizations.

You can view past events, including agendas and speakers on the Past Event page on the Funders Together website.

 

Youth Homelessness Funder Network and Leadership Committee

At the conclusion of Funders Together’s first community of practice, Foundations for Youth Success, members wanted to continue learning and meeting, and invite other funders to join them. Funders Together began planning and organizing a Youth Network, open to all funders, that provides programming and resources focused on youth homelessness.

In addition to the larger Youth Funder Network, Funders Together also developed a smaller Leadership Committee made up of funders who are committed to the following:

  1. Using their voice for policy and advocacy.
  2. Sharing and highlighting work and best practices for funders.
  3. Serving as peer network for funders in this space.
  4. Supporting national efforts around youth homelessness both financially and with their voice.

 

Foundations for Employment and Housing

After the success of Foundations for Youth Success, Funders Together began planning a second community of practice, this one to be a two-year venture focused on strengthening the connection between the employment and our efforts to end homelessness. In October 2017, Funders Together convened a group a of funders interested in participating in Foundations for Employment and Housing at the Heartland Alliance Connection Project convening to plan how the community would be structured and what members aimed to take away from the group. Officially kicking off in 2018, community members meet regularly to learn from one another and from experts. At the end of year one, community members will determine a shared action that they will take to move this work forward.

 

United Ways Ending Homelessness

In partnership with United Way Worldwide, Funders Together launched a Community of Practice for United Ways working to end homelessness in their communities. Members meet virtually, every month, to support one another, share updates, and to work together to strengthen United Way’s work to end homelessness nationally and locally.

 

  Through events, webinars, networks, and communities of practice, Funders Together to End Homelessness has created a more networked environment for members and funders working to end homelessness. By providing learning opportunities, both in-depth and issue focused, and action items for implementing changes in their work, it has helped members become essential change makers in their community.

 

We joined Funders Together because we believe in the power of philanthropy to play a major role in ending homelessness, and we know we have much to learn from funders across the country.

-Christine Marge, Director of Housing and Financial Stability at United Way of Greater Los Angeles

I am thankful for the local partnerships here in the Pacific Northwest that we’ve been able to create and nurture thanks to the work of Funders Together. Having so many of the right players at the table makes our conversations – and all of our efforts – all the richer and more effective.

-David Wertheimer, Deputy Director at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Very often a lack of jobs and money is not the cause of poverty, but the symptom. The cause may lie deeper in our failure to give our fellow citizens a fair chance to develop their own capacities, in a lack of education and training, in a lack of medical care and housing, in a lack of decent communities in which to live and bring up their children.

-President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964 State of the Union Address

Funders Together has given me a platform to engage the other funders in my community. Our local funding community has improved greatly to support housing first models and align of resources towards ending homelessness.

-Leslie Strnisha, Vice President at Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland

Our family foundation convenes local funders and key community stakeholders around strategies to end homelessness in Houston. Funders Together members have been invaluable mentors to us in this effort, traveling to our community to share their expertise and examples of best practices from around the nation.

-Nancy Frees Fountain, Managing Director at The Frees Foundation


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Become a Member

Only members have access to some of the resources we list on this page. Feel free to explore the Funder Toolkit and see what we have to offer, but you may not be able to access some of the resources without signing up for membership.

When you join Funders Together, you also gain access to: educational programming, national learning communities, funder-focused tools and resources, networking opportunities, and more. Read about membership here.

Read how funders can end homelessness.

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