On February 28, 2023, we gathered in Oakland, California in conjunction with the National Conference on Ending Homelessness for our 2023 Funders Forum. More than 60 participants joined to discuss the urgency of building coalitions, engaging in principled struggle, and prioritizing housing justice values.
Check back soon for our blog post recapping the event and what participants reflected on from the 2023 Funders Forum.
Check out the speaker biographies for more details about the speakers, moderators, and table hosts.
9:00 am PT |
Welcome to the 2023 Funders ForumFunders Together CEO, Amanda Andere kicked off the Funders Forum with words of welcome and grounding in our vision for housing justice.
Keynote: Building a Vision for Housing JusticeIn this keynote, Laura Raymond, Director of ACT LA, shared how housing justice organizers are envisioning the future of the work for housing justice. She shared how movement building and housing justice vision is aligned across the state and how the contexts of their respective communities shape the nuances of their work. She also created an umbrella and provided context for deeper conversation about their transformational goals and strategies, such as de-commodifying housing, and how they share their power with philanthropy. Speaker:
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Fireside Chat: What True Philanthropic Partnership and Accountability Look Like in Housing Justice WorkAfter the keynote, we hosted a fireside chat between our keynote speaker and a funder from the Fund for an Inclusive California, a philanthropic effort to advance racial and economic equity by building the power of communities of color. This discussion explored the balance of power between philanthropy and movement leaders, how philanthropy is holding themselves accountable in this partnership, and lessons that funders can take back to their communities. Speakers:
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11:00 am PT |
Stronger Together: Building Alignment to Advance Housing JusticeA vision for housing justice will remain a vision without alignment of values, knowledge, and actions. If we want our vision for housing justice to be real, we must transform how we work together, engage in principled struggle, and care for one another. Doing so requires forging deeper relationships and building coalitions that disrupt the status quo. In this conversation, we lifted up housing justice work at the national and local levels with concrete ways philanthropy can fund, convene, and advocate for housing justice. Nationally, we highlighted the work of the National Coalition for Housing Justice, its impact on the housing and homelessness field, and the Coalition’s housing justice policy agenda. Locally, we shared the work of Chicago Funders Together to End Homelessness and the Housing Justice Fund they recently launched. Speakers:
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1:00 pm PT |
What It Means to Engage in Principled StruggleIn light of recent direct action around McPherson Square encampment raids, Funders Together staff engaged participants in what it looks like to practice principled struggle, especially with those we thought were in alignment with around our housing justice vision. Speakers:
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1:45 pm PT |
Concurrent Afternoon ProgrammingConcurrent Program A: Deep Dives to Explore Narrative Change, Health x Homelessness, Coalition Building, and Program Design & EvaluationAs stated in Funders Together’s new strategic framework, true justice and liberation cannot be achieved until we confront and hold accountable the reality that the current ways philanthropy operates need to be dismantled, then reoriented and reimagined towards a more liberated way of resourcing communities. Doing so will require a nuanced understand of the difference and connection between equity and justice and how these concepts apply concretely to our funding strategies and priorities. We began the fishbowl conversation between field experts to uncover themes and questions related to four topics our funder network has expressed interest in learning more about. After we had this opportunity to jumpstart our thinking, participants had an opportunity to choose one of four tables to explore a topic in greater nuance. Table 1: Exploring the Crossroads of Policy and Advocacy with Narrative Change Several funders have shared common questions about connecting their current grantmaking and advocacy work with narrative change, measuring the success of narrative change work, and what is needed across the field. This table offered a practical and concrete space for funders to raise questions, test ideas, and receive feedback from other funders working on narrative change and ending homelessness. Table Hosts:
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Table 2: A Deeper Dive into Philanthropy’s Role in Coalition Building Using questions surfaced over the course of the day, this conversation answered practical questions about philanthropy’s role in supporting coalitions and navigating the internal and external tensions between movements and philanthropic institutions. Participants at this table learned about the Fund for an Inclusive California and its impact on its philanthropic partners. Table Hosts:
Resource: Table 3: Structuring the Design & Evaluation of Programs to Lead with Equity and Justice How do you structure the work to overcome the resistance of institutions to cede power to those most impacted? And, how can we as funders better understand evaluation is a core piece of strategy and design it so that we are measuring how successful we are at advancing housing justice and building power? This table conversation focused on out a few themes and experiences related to these questions in short vignettes before table participants decided how they want to deepen this conversation. Table hosts:
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Table 4: Health, Homelessness, and Housing Justice What would it look like to bring “health funders” and “housing funders” in closer partnership toward a shared set of goals? How do we think about messaging, narrative, program design, and measuring success at the intersection of health, homelessness, and housing? This roundtable, led by the California Health Care Foundation, provided an opportunity for participants to bring ideas, questions, and challenges about how health and homelessness to weave together themes from the Funders Forum to coalition building, narrative, program design, and policy. Table hosts:
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Concurrent Program B: Regional Funder Network Learning CircleFunders Together supports several place-based funder networks and collaboratives that bridge national advocacy and best practices with local efforts to end homelessness. This funder network convening provided an opportunity for participants to learn with other regional network leaders, discuss what it would look like to mobilize regional networks behind housing justice values, and identify the type of support FTEH can provide to live into this vision. |
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