Lyons-Newman Consulting

🎉 TOP TEN NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS FOR FUNDERS 🎉 10. No surprises! We will make our entire application available outside of our portal. 9.  MYGOD!* We will make deep and long-term commitments of unrestricted funds. 🙌 *MYGOD = Multi-Year General Operating Dollars 8. No fees! 🚫 We will never charge a fee to apply for our grants. 7. Let’s declutter: We will stop asking for information in our application that we will only need after we award the funding. 6. Clarity is kindness: We will clearly communicate our funding priorities and eligibility requirements. 📢 5. It’s 2025! We will not request paper copies of anything. 📜 4. Because we understand power differences, we will not request practices we don’t follow ourselves (e.g. capping admin costs). 3. 🛑 We will not conduct a public popularity contest of any kind to grant awards and we will not ask awardees to market our philanthropy for us. 2. We will do our own due diligence 🔍 and collect publicly available information rather than asking applicants for more information. 1. We will take concrete steps to find out how our grantees and applicants really feel about working with us. 👀 Do you know a funder who kept their resolutions? Tell us about your great funders right here: https://lnkd.in/eQBwVgsP Or maybe you’re wishing your funder made some new year’s resolutions? Tell us about it here: https://lnkd.in/eHcGHWrp

Happy new year from the beautiful San Francisco Bay

Happy holidays from all of us at Lyons-Newman Consulting. May your holidays be filled with peace, rest, and inspiration for the work ahead.

This week I had the opportunity to attend Fund the People's #TalentJusticeSummit. The Summit convened nonprofits, funders, and intermediaries to explore how to advance talent justice in California's nonprofit sector. Some take aways: ➡️ A chronic lack of talent-investment has led to the existential crisis facing the nonprofit workforce today. Robust investment in the nonprofit workforce can advance equity and sustainability in the sector while strengthening our communities.  ➡️ Our democracy, nonprofits, and civil society are under threat. Take action against the Nonprofit-Killer Bill (HR9495 / S4136). The bill seeks to revoke the tax-exempt status of organizations if designated "terrorist supporting" by the federal government. This legislation represents a critical threat to nonprofits, as it allows the executive branch broad and unchecked power to target organizations for political ends. Take 5 minutes to call/write the Senator Majority Leader and your two U.S. senators.  ➡️ Lean into Trust Based Philanthropy, support low barriers for nonprofit organizations to apply for funds, make reporting easy, and provide multiple years of grant support. We learned from leaders and grant recipients of the Walter & Elise Haas Fund's Fund's Endeavor Fund calling on the nonprofit sector for foundations to provide sizable multi-year general operating grants. With a total investment of $24.5 million, the Endeavor Fund aims to close the racial and gender wealth gap and promote nonprofit well-being, including support for quality, empowering jobs in the nonprofit sector. Through the Endeavor Fund, seven leading Bay Area organizations have been awarded seven-year grants of $3.5 million each. ➡️ Expert on burnout, Christina Maslach shared that it is a myth to say that burnout is a medical condition. Talking about burnout this way and saying that people need to be "more resilient" or practice better "self-care" places the responsibility on the individual to improve rather than on the organization to fix the conditions that cause the burnout. The definition of burnout is: a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stressors that have not been successfully managed. Other insights: Match the job to the people. There are 6 paths to a healthier workplace: workload, control, recognition/reward, community, fairness, and values. Ask regularly: "How can we make things better around here?"  ➡️ Vu Le emphasized the need for sector leadership to address the needs and defend the value of nonprofit organizations nationally. Conservatives are all doing trust based philanthropy and funding organizations for the long-term. "We need to fund like conservatives (minus being evil)" A big thank you to organizers Fund the People, Rusty Stahl, Convening Toward Liberation and all the excellent speakers and participants for an inspiring coming together of amazing leadership in our sector.

We're #hiring a new Social Impact Operations Manager (Part-Time) in San Francisco Bay Area. Apply today or share this post with your network.

#strategicplanning

Lifting up this message from our amazing client East Bay Housing Organizations honoring Native American History Month and acknowledging the history of the land we live on and working to return Indigenous land to Indigenous people #housingjustice #strategicplanning #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth

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On this day we recognize Transgender Day of Remembrance by holding space and drawing attention to the beautiful people lost to transgender bigotry and violence. Maitri is and has always been a place of love, visibility, and compassion for our transgender family. As our community works every day to combat trans hate we pull from our mission: no one should have to suffer, transition, or die alone.

Very sorry to hear of the recent death of John McKnight, founder of Asset-Based Community Development Institute and author of Building Communities from the Inside Out, the Careless Society, Disabling Professions, Abundant Community, and other inspirational books. His leadership centering the strengths and assets of individuals and communities in solutions has been foundational to my philosophical framework and guided me in my work over the decades supporting community-building and social impact efforts in the San Fransisco Bay Area. May his legacy inspire us in the important work ahead strengthening communities.