By Tony Richardson, Funders Together Board Chair and Bianca Alston, Funders Together Vice Board Chair

After deep reflection on our values and conversations across the organization, Funders Together to End Homelessness is now called Funders Together for Housing Justice. This change reflects our ongoing commitment to addressing unstable housing, accessibility and affordability as well as ending homelessness in all its forms, especially for people who have been historically oppressed and marginalized. 

Our Why 

The name Funders Together for Housing Justice more accurately aligns with our ongoing work, which is rooted in the unwavering belief that housing justice is racial justice. Our new name demonstrates that we are and will continue to be pro-Black, pro-Indigenous, and pro-LGBTQ+ in all our efforts towards a more just and liberated world. It codifies our approach toward power and agency, corrective action, and the need to transform the housing sector. 

It also strengthens our renewed commitment to housing and racial justice and to those who have faced the greatest housing injustices. The solutions Funders Together elevates, and the policy changes we advocate for, will always focus on people at the sharpest intersections of oppression and marginalization, including people experiencing homelessness, those who are Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, immigrant neighbors, and disabled and LGBTQ+ people. 

Our hope is that more funders and partners will see themselves in our collective efforts and that this update to our name invites conversation about what housing justice means and how it is connected to other justice movements. 

How We Arrived Here 

When Funders Together to End Homelessness was founded in 2010, our focus was specifically on addressing chronic homelessness across the country and building collaboration among philanthropy investing in solutions to the problem. We later expanded our focus to include all forms of homelessness. When Amanda Andere became CEO in 2016, she led a critical strategic planning process that named racial equity as central to our mission and vision. Under her leadership, this became the foundation for our shared learning and public commitment to racial equity. 

In subsequent years, Funders Together realized achieving racial equity alone would not create the conditions for policy changes necessary to solve homelessness. We then worked to clarify how to shift philanthropy toward a different vision for housing and give our members and the field of philanthropy clear strategies to move beyond racial equity and toward racial justice. 

In 2022, we released our current strategic framework positioning housing justice as our north star. Since then, it has become clear that as an organization focused on housing and racial justice, our name should reflect all the facets of this work along with our values. 

What This Means for Our Work, Philanthropy, and the Movement  

In all, this name change reflects the evolution of the work we are already engaged in and codifies what we stand for. Funders Together will continue to work, examine, question and collaborate in ways that reflect our values of liberation and justice. We will keep examining power, including philanthropy’s relationship to power, how to cede and build power, and how we disrupt power dynamics in solidarity with community.  

As an organization committed to transformation of systems through love and disruption, we stay committed to meeting people where they are but not leaving them there. Philanthropy and movement partners can anticipate us pushing and interrogating how we lean further into our values for justice and liberation, challenging our own assumptions and learnings as well as those of others in our movement.   

Between our updated organization name and the transition of our CEO, Amanda Andere, and Chief Strategy Officer, Stephanie Chan, this is a season of change for Funders Together. In this, we acknowledge that change breeds opportunity for transformation based on the strong foundation created by Amanda and Stephanie.  

On behalf of the Funders Together Board, we invite conversations and opportunities to catalyze our commitments in addition to understanding how we can continue to meet this moment. Thank you for your continued partnership in the work for housing justice.  

If you have questions about this transition to Funders Together for Housing Justice, or would like to discuss how this impacts our work, please contact Amanda Andere. 

We invite members and partners to share the word about this rename and update our name and logo wherever present on your website or in other communications. 

Tony Richardson Funders Together Board Chair	Bianca Alston Funders Together Vice Board Chair