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

Strategic Goals

Funders Together Strategic Goals

In 2016, Funders Together staff and board members engaged in a 2-day strategic planning session, setting goals for the next three years around our organization’s missionmobilize its members to utilize the voice, influence, and expertise of philanthropy in ways that will advance lasting solutions to ending homelessness, including addressing its underlying causes like structural and racial inequities, and helping create policies and systems that center people with lived expertise.

We listened to our members’ feedback, analyzed the country’s political landscape, and examined trends, as well as gaps, in priorities to guide our strategic plan. As a result, Funders Together crafted a plan focused on five main objectives that will allow us to stay on course with our organizational mission of expanding philanthropy’s impact and influence to advance the movement to prevent and end homelessness.

We also made a Commitment to Racial Equity to support our members and the philanthropic sector to shift its practice, policy and grantmaking actions and how we will foster greater diversity, equity, and inclusion within FTEH as an organization.

Advocacy

Funders Together to End Homelessness will strengthen philanthropy’s voice and impact in advocacy and policy to prevent and end homelessness.

What this means for our members: Funders Together will provide philanthropy-oriented resources on what it means to engage in or fund advocacy efforts. We will also educate our members on various advocacy opportunities and how they can be involved within the legal limitations. Funders Together will advocate on our members’ behalf around public policy issues and participate in opportunities with policy makers at both the local and national level when appropriate. 

 

Programming

Funders Together to End Homelessness programs and resources are utilized by philanthropy to make a significant contribution to the movement to prevent and end homelessness.

What this means for our members: Funders Together will provide tailored and timely programming opportunities for members in the form of in-person events, webinars, online resources, small group calls, and email alerts. These programs and resources will keep our members abreast of FTEH and partner happenings, alert them to opportunities to network and learn with peers, and advance knowledge of best practices in the field.

 

The FTEH Network

Funders Together to End Homelessness will operate in a more networked way with our members and partners so that individuals will be more connected with one another for learning and action through more of a movement-building approach.

What this means for our members: Funders Together will provide networking and learning opportunities in which members can connect and collaborate at the local and/or national level on homelessness initiatives. Through our in-person events, communities of practice, and funder networks, members can connect on issue-focused learnings as well as explore the prospect of working together on a wide range of issues.

 

Addressing Racial Inequity

Funders Together to End Homelessness will engage philanthropy to address racial inequity in homelessness, recognizing that unequal access to housing is the biggest inequity issue.

What this means for our members: By naming racial inequity in homelessness as a priority, Funders Together is committing to helping our members start a learning journey to understand the history and current structural issues that lead to racial inequities within homelessness. We will provide resources and spaces for discussion that will help us learn about racial inequity and work together to change our field. 

 

Operational Sustainability

Funders Together to End Homelessness has a strong diversified income stream and plans for long-term effective governance and talent development.

What this means for our members: In order to serve the homelessness and philanthropic fields to the best of our ability, Funders Together must work hard to maintain an active and diverse board, talented and knowledgeable staff, and long-term financial sustainability. We will always strive to improve our operational sustainability so we can continue to provide quality networking opportunities and useful resources for our members

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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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.

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