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

Introducing Michael Durham as the Funders Together Director of Networks

We are excited to announce that Michael Durham (he/him/his) will join Funders Together as our Director of Networks on May 16, 2022. He steps into this role after nearly nine years with the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, a membership and advocacy organization representing the healthcare arm of the U.S. movement to end homelessness.  

michael_headshot.pngIn his role as the Community Engagement Manager at the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, Michael oversaw technical assistance for community health centers that serve people experiencing homelessness. Other areas of focus for his work included alternatives to law enforcement, decriminalization, dismantling institutional racism in the nonprofit sector, street medicine/outreach, public health approaches to encampments, and expanding the network of health care providers who serve people without homes. 

"After engaging with Funders Together staff through the National Racial Equity Working Group, I'm most excited about joining the team because antiracism, justice, and liberation are at the center of all the organization is working towards. I’m looking forward to connecting with members and mobilizing philanthropy to conspire for housing and racial justice,” Michael said about joining Funders Together. 

In his role as Director of Networks, Michael will lead our work with regional and issue-focused networks and communities of practice including the Health Systems Funders for Housing Justice Network, Funders for Youth Success network, and our regional networks in Baltimore, the Bay Area, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Diego.  

In our Commitment to Racial Equity, Funders Together committed to building a race equity culture, which includes both hiring staff and selecting board members from historically marginalized and underrepresented populations. It also requires all staff to be co-conspirators in the work for racial justice. We are excited to have Michael join this intentional culture we have built and continue to grow.  

Please join us in welcoming Michael! 


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  • Lauren Bennett
    published this page in Blog 2022-05-03 15:46:03 -0400

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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