Category: Event Takeaways

As social inequality and economic disparities continue to rise across the United States, there is a pressing need to reverse the trends, transform the economic landscape, and build a foundation for sustainable intergenerational prosperity. Data shows areas of greater inequity experience weaker economic growth — so it benefits all of us to overcome those inequities.

On February 26, NationSwell convened leaders from across sectors for a virtual roundtable on the strategies and opportunities they’re seeing to address systemic inequities, including affordable housing, access to quality education, healthcare disparities, and the racial wealth gap.

Some takeaways from the conversation appear below:

Insights

We need to invest in widening “wealth literacy” not just financial literacy.. There are still knowledge gaps in how individuals tend to conceptualize income as wealth vs. understanding asset-based accumulation.

Lowering the barriers to entry can give millions more people access to powerful tools. . Tools that have been widely vetted and applied — including grants, “patient” loans, and market rate loans — are still some of the best in our collective arsenal, but access is still an issue for communities who have been historically regarded as unbankable. In order to mitigate those roadblocks, organizations like the Groundbreak Coalition focus on stacking resources to make it easier for people to find them and benefit from their collective impact — using tried-and-true puzzle pieces, but reconfigured in a more accessible way.

Employee ownership is a powerful way to empower people to build wealth. Organizations such as Ownership Works offer businesses of all sizes the opportunity to offer their staff stock – a vital pathway to wealth building, and addressing the imbalance that currently the top 1% wealth owners own 99% of the stock and mutual funds. 

Safety net reforms show promise when they mirror the values of trust-based giving. The principles of trust-based giving — like not having to prove your worthiness over and over again — a should be reflected in our social safety net and direct cash transfer programs. 

Targeted policy reforms like “baby bonds” help to reimagine the role the government has to play in closing the wealth gap. Baby bonds are government-funded trusts created at a child’s birth. California has started the largest baby bond program in the country aimed at children who have lost a primary caregiver through COVID or have long term stays in the state’s foster care system.

For underserved individuals, entrepreneurship can be a significant pathway for wealth generation. Undocumented and formerly incarcerated individuals are not always able to legally work as employees; and incarceration is shown to be a huge factor in the wealth gap. Entrepreneurship creates avenues to work as your own boss and can help to make inroads for wealth-building. Focusing on business development and supporting co-ops and CDFIs — as well as working with partners focused on seeding community-based organizations (CBOs) —  can help to strengthen such opportunities.

Narrative change is a necessary component of the wealth-building conversation. As a society, our tendency to attribute poverty to a moral failure or theorize that poverty is solvable through hard work and the “bootstraps mythology” help dictate the ways that policies are prioritized and shaped, creating tremendous barriers to entry that exacerbate the wealth gap. Using sociopolitical context and narrative storytelling can help to catalyze our communities into feeling like they’re part of a larger picture in wealth-building — helping to create buy-in, engender pride, and form a sense that this work is larger than ourselves.

Partnerships and collective action are essential for advancing transformational impact. But what are the most effective and boundary-setting approaches to collaboration today? What perspective, strategies, and frameworks are unlocking deep value between organizations and across sectors?

On February 20, NationSwell hosted a virtual roundtable discussion on the Impact Imperative: Innovative and Effective Partnership Models.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the event:

Insights:

Invest in trust-building as a load-bearing feature of your partnerships. Successful collaborations are rooted in trust and relationship-building. Establishing trust requires ongoing engagement, transparency, and alignment on shared goals. Whether between funders and grantees or across coalitions, investing time in in-person collaboration and candid conversations strengthens long-term commitment and impact.

Create a backbone to facilitate cross-sector collaboration. Organizations that take on the role of a backbone entity can drive more effective cross-sector partnerships – coordinating efforts, providing structural support, and creating alignment among stakeholders. As a backbone organization, tap into real-time, data-driven insights, and third-party expertise. 

Identify the intersection of organizational self-interest and things that you absolutely can’t do alone. As a general rule, a strong understanding of your own opportunities for partnership starts here.

Engage third-party perspectives to spark new ideas and collaborations. Organizations often miss opportunities for innovation by staying within their own networks. External experts, intermediaries, and third-party organizations can help identify new collaboration opportunities, provide fresh perspectives, and facilitate partnerships that might not naturally emerge. 

Break down silos among funders to enhance collective impact. Many funders support the same nonprofits but fail to coordinate efforts, leading to inefficiencies and missed opportunities. Organizations should pool resources, align funding strategies, and pursue collaborative grant-making to maximize impact and reduce burdens on nonprofit partners. Independent conveners can play a key role in brokering connections and facilitating shared funding models.

Hire staff with cross-sector experience to strengthen partnership design and relationships. Having team members with firsthand experience in relevant sectors improves collaboration and bridges power dynamics between funders and grantees. For instance, staff with NGO backgrounds bring emotional intelligence and valuable insight into nonprofit challenges, making them better positioned to create more equitable, flexible, and responsive funding strategies at grantmaking organizations.

Support nonprofit sustainability during economic uncertainty. Given financial uncertainty and funding contractions, funders should explore operating support, flexible grant structures, and bridge funding to help nonprofits sustain their work. Small grants can provide immediate relief, while long-term investment strategies ensure stability in an evolving landscape.

The social sector is being broken down and upheaved in dramatic ways right now; therein lies opportunity to consider what a better model looks like. With many traditional funding and partnership models being challenged, this moment presents an opportunity to rebuild a more effective and sustainable system. Organizations should use this period of uncertainty to innovate, create new frameworks, and rethink how funders, nonprofits, and businesses collaborate to drive long-term impact.

In an era of rapid economic change and growing inequality, creating equitable career pathways has become a critical challenge for policymakers, educators, and business leaders alike. As we strive to build a thriving economy that benefits all members of society, innovative approaches to workforce development and career advancement are essential.

On February 18, NationSwell hosted a Leader Roundtable dedicated to unpacking the cutting-edge strategies and most effective initiatives, programs, and models for fostering equitable career pathways.

Some of the takeaways from that conversation appear below:

Insights:

Encourage skills-based hiring and employer investment in long-term workforce development. Skills-based hiring is on the rise, but still needs socialization and support. Continue to emphasize that traditional degree requirements often exclude qualified candidates, and that employers should reassess job descriptions to focus on competencies rather than credentials. Beyond immediate hiring needs, businesses should invest in reskilling and career advancement opportunities. Offering continuous education, apprenticeships, and mentorship programs helps employees grow within the company, reducing turnover and increasing economic mobility. 

Prioritize social supports to remove workforce barriers. Workforce development programs must go beyond skills training and job placement by addressing systemic barriers that prevent individuals from succeeding in the workplace. Providing wraparound services such as childcare, transportation assistance, and financial aid ensures individuals can fully participate in training programs and employment. These supports are often the difference between career success and workforce disengagement.

Leverage storytelling to drive awareness and action. Storytelling has the power to change hearts and minds at scale. Strategic storytelling outlets, such as films, that reach beyond typical workforce bubbles can help socialize and promote specific narratives about hiring practices. Employers and workforce advocates should use storytelling to highlight real-world challenges and opportunities.

Align workforce initiatives with business strategy. Successful corporate social impact programs are integrated into business strategy and continually aim to demonstrate return on investment. Leaders should aim to align their workforce development initiatives with core competencies, such as training talent in fields relevant to their industry, to create shared value and sustainable employment pipelines. Additionally, corporate foundations and philanthropic investments can be positioned as catalysts – providing seed funding to test and scale innovative models that demonstrate measurable outcomes. By leveraging data, organizations can make a compelling business case for continued corporate investment, turning short-term funding into long-term strategic commitments. 

Act as brokers of connection to create strong networks of support. Employers, nonprofits, and funders should focus on facilitating partnerships to ensure job seekers have access to the resources they need. Rather than duplicating existing efforts, organizations can focus on coordinating services, sharing best practices, and building collaborative models. A well-connected ecosystem enhances career mobility, supports talent development, and ensures long-term success for both workers and employers.

Adapt messaging to shifting political and social landscapes. As Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) language faces political pushback, organizations should remain committed to their mission while adapting their messaging. Framing workforce initiatives around economic mobility, opportunity, and business success can help sustain momentum while addressing stakeholder concerns.

Telling a compelling impact story is critical to standing out and inspiring action, particularly when confronted with cultural narratives and storylines that seek to undermine the work.

On February 13, NationSwell hosted a virtual roundtable discussion to explore how leaders can craft narratives that resonate, engage, and drive support for their priorities.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the event:

Prioritize human-centered, emotionally resonant storytelling. It is important that we never lose sight of the fact that there are human beings and human stories behind the data. In a particularly partisan moment, our shared humanity is the lowest common denominator that cuts through the divisiveness — and we have an opportunity to be the steady voice that lifts up those stories and communities in a way that cuts through the political noise. 

Internal storytelling is needed as critically as external storytelling is. Internal transparency around organizational values and decision-making processes are key to maintaining engagement and trust among employees — particularly in a moment when an organization might be pulling back its public messaging on social issues. Lifting up and engaging employees around social impact work and the ways it positively impacts people and communities is always vitally important, but particularly so now, in a moment when employees need inspiration, connection, and hope. 

Ask grantees and partners what they need from you in your storytelling. Nonprofits, grantees, and partners are currently facing increasing amounts of pressure, and there is no uniformity in what they need from you in terms of advancing their stories. Taking the time to make calls, check in on your partners, and communicating directly on what grantees need is necessary to ensure that amplification and storytelling is not inadvertently harmful to them at this time.

Build authentic equity with your audience and stakeholders. At a time when consumers and audiences are incredibly knowledgeable about their own communities, people crave the type of authenticity that can be found in the small details. Having a firm grasp of nuance, undertones, and subcultures can help to build authentic equity, and you can do this in two primary ways: First, by identifying trusted messengers who can act as proxies for their communities, helping to ensure that we are not speaking on anyone’s behalf. And second, by getting creative with the storytelling modalities —  thinking about the interactive ways that we can showcase our stories, data, and information, whether through online or offline interaction. 

Help people understand the “why under the why”. With headlines and a heightened political pitch competing for audiences’ attention, keeping messaging concise and strategic will help to ensure that you’re communicating as effectively as possible. Although it can be tempting to give in to the desire to be urgent and reactive around messaging, slowing down and taking a more intentional approach to which conversations you’re entering can help cut through the noise in real time and more effectively translate your values to your audience.

Consider storytelling through the lens of a hierarchy of needs. Because there are so many things that we need stories to do for us right now, we need to be very intentional about which are the most essential to pursue. Every organization has a critical and specific role to play in creating impact — doing internal audits on where our most urgent priorities lie will be crucial to ensuring we are maximizing our storytelling potential. 

As we step into 2025, AI technologies are primed to drive even greater innovation around societal challenges, from fostering inclusive growth to expanding educational pathways and beyond. But AI is also going to continue raising important ethical questions while carrying the potential to drive new inequities.

At NationSwell’s recent roundtable discussion, What’s Ahead in Social Impact and AI, leaders and innovators across sectors joined featured panelists Vilas Dhar of The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, Nathan Froelich of Blackbaud, and Stephen Plank of The Annie E. Casey Foundation to share strategies on how AI is currently being leveraged to meet societal challenges and surface ethical considerations and best practices for responsible AI implementation moving forward.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the event:

Insights:

Philanthropic funders have a key role to play in ensuring nonprofit partners get the AI  tools they need at scale. New technologies have the potential to serve vulnerable communities, including by organizing decades of longitudinal research and creating predictive engines that can improve community wellbeing. But given the corporate power dynamics surrounding how tech is built and deployed, we need philanthropies and companies to step forward and advocate for the technology solutions their partners need on the ground, in order for them to be created at scale. Funders have a unique opportunity to come together to build shared capacity, new institutions, and resources in order to ensure that future investments in AI go toward honing its potential to create new pathways to dignity and justice in the world.

A good intelligence strategy will require us to be extremely intentional about governance. One of the most pressing challenges posed by AI will be how we can leverage and deploy it in a way that doesn’t harm people and the planet. We need to set up effective systems of governance, paying attention to how we’re deploying generative AI both within our own organizations and in the marketplace. The development of a set of guiding principles will be instrumental in determining which technologies your organization ultimately adopts, ensuring that the tools you’re using meet your ethical standards.

The creation of empowerment councils can help you tap into the most salient use cases for AI. Convening grantees and employees and giving them the access and latitude to experiment with AI can be one way to fuel unfettered iteration and innovation. Providing the tools and encouraging experimentation and exploration can help to surface the most salient examples of how they’re using new technologies to be more productive and support goals effectively, which can ultimately be helpful in deciding when and how to scale solutions appropriately.

Private-public partnerships hold great potential in shaping AI decisions and adoption. Engaging directly with tech funders through roundtable discussions can help to surface innovative ways to leverage private sector partnerships for tool licensing and technical assistance. Similarly, building peer learning communities where government leaders can access AI expertise and collectively develop approaches to service delivery and technology procurement can be powerful ways to shape policy decisions. 

AI’s potential to displace or disrupt jobs depends on which workforce you’re talking about. While there is good research to suggest that corporate leaders do not expect AI to contribute to significant disruption in white collar jobs, those outside of traditional 9-5 roles still face challenges to upskilling, and in many cases AI is being developed with goals that run counter to the interests and livelihoods of low income and nontraditional workers. At the same time, new technologies also hold the potential to help workers maintain and build power by facilitating organization among union members, helping workers to file wage theft claims, visualize data, and influencing state policy decisions. Let’s explore that potential.

As we take stock of the urgent needs on the ground in Los Angeles following the devastating wildfires earlier this month, a group of NationSwell members convened to discuss how to best allocate energy and resources in response to the near and long-term impacts of the disaster.

Below are some of the key takeaways that were surfaced:

Think in phases to align support with evolving needs during disaster recovery. As you build your response and recovery strategies, consider the distinct needs at different stages of recovery. Focus on immediate relief and first responder support in the near term, stabilizing communities with housing and essential services in the mid term, and rebuilding homes, mental health, and economic resilience in the long term. Phased grantmaking and collaborating with trusted community organizations during each phase ensures aid meets actual needs, preventing overwhelm or misallocation of resources. 

Invest in disaster mitigation and prevention to improve preparedness. Proactive efforts in disaster prevention, including for wildfires, can significantly reduce the impact of future disasters. For example, initiatives like clearing fuel sources, creating defensible space around homes, and providing home protection training can help communities better withstand wildfires. Find opportunities to invest in mitigation strategies during blue-sky periods to enhance resilience and reduce the strain on recovery resources after disasters occur. Consider encouraging employees to take wildfire prevention training (e.g. home ignition zone training). 

Work with credible partners to ensure product donations are targeted and effective. Collaborate with organizations that specialize in timely and efficient product distribution to increase the likelihood that in-kind donations reach the right people at the right time. Leveraging established relationships with grassroots organizations or well vetted partners can prevent product donations going to waste or the creation of logistical challenges for impacted communities. 

Prioritize cash assistance to meet diverse and immediate needs. Direct cash assistance is one of the most effective ways to help individuals and small businesses address their unique needs following a disaster. Cash assistance is particularly critical for underbanked populations and undocumented workers, who often face barriers to accessing traditional financial support. Supporting communities at risk of being left behind, such as day laborers and micro-businesses, can lessen lost livelihood from the fires. Flexible cash-based approaches empower recipients to make decisions that best suit their circumstances, from securing housing to rebuilding businesses.

Leverage platforms and create opportunities for employee giving. Activating employees as contributors to disaster relief efforts can amplify an organization’s impact while increasing a sense of purpose and community within the workplace. Companies are using platforms for employees to donate directly to vetted organizations, matched by corporate contributions. Companies can also create point-of-sale donation opportunities, raising funding through QR codes and round-up campaigns and increasing public awareness about disasters. 

Use informal networks and communication channels to improve collaboration during crises. Creating private and informal communication channels can be a valuable tool for leaders to coordinate and exchange ideas during times of crisis. For example, being part of a group of LA-based leaders or organizations for off-the-record exchanges of strategies and lessons learned can provide a safe space to troubleshoot challenges, share real-time updates, and identify opportunities for collaboration. 

Invest in narrative work to sustain attention on disaster recovery. Shifting the public and media narrative toward systemic issues like inequality and generational wealth loss can promote better understanding of community needs. Getting innovative with your funding choices, such as investing in photography projects or local storytelling initiatives, can help highlight underrepresented voices in public forums and the full scope of post-disaster challenges.

Philanthropic leaders must balance the work of executing on their unique organizational priorities, adapting to evolutions in the field, and innovating toward more impactful models and approaches.

At the outset of 2025 – a year poised to surface new tensions, complexities, and opportunities for funders – NationSwell convened leaders to take stock of the most urgent trends and highlight what’s needed to unlock even more transformational impact on the road ahead. 

Here are some of the key takeaways from the event:

Increasing polarization around the language of DEI might require adjusting approaches to achieve important goals. Doubling down on our equity commitments within the current political climate may require us to think creatively about how we can still “do the work” without drawing unwanted attention — relying on judicious rhetorical and narrative framings in order to continue to show up and prioritize the people and communities who rely on us. At the same time, we must remember that language has power — when we change our language, we also risk inadvertently decentering our priorities or shifting our focus. Maintaining our firm commitments to increasing equity will require us to avoid “preemptive submission” — making cuts or strategic decisions out of fear of the unknown, before we’re asked or required to do so.

Focus on what is in front of you and what you can actually control. Sometimes, the oldest cliches are true: Hand-wringing and worrying about the state of the world more broadly will only stymie your efforts to move the ball forward in the corners of your organization where effective change is possible. Our current political moment requires an acknowledgement that this political phase is temporary, and a commitment to adjusting to and processing the information we actually have in front of us in order to respond effectively and do the critical work that needs to be done in this moment of flux.

Get creative about how public-private partnerships can function in unexpected ways to serve common interests. As the work of joining hands in service of common goals becomes more urgent, leaning on nontraditional partnership models is one avenue funders can explore in order to serve their communities. Funders who might not normally come together or might have competing funding priorities — banks, for example — now have an opportunity to come together and use one voice, thinking strategically about how they can work together in service of creating more inclusive economies and being more generally supportive to partners, organizations, and the communities they serve. 

Prioritize the engagement of local government in place-based work. Although there is traditionally a silo wall that hinders functional communication and collaboration between place-based philanthropy leaders and local governments, the swiftly-materializing reality of a massive reduction in federal dollars and services will inevitably leave local governments facing significant financial constraints and obstacles to delivering urgently-needed services. As community members are set to bear the brunt of these shortfalls, philanthropic leaders now have a prime opportunity to develop new strategies for bridge-building and engagement with local officials — and to help reimagine how those funds and community services are delivered. 

Understand that some nonprofit partners are anxious and scared. Our current moment will require us to think not just as funders, but also as community members responding to a very human reaction by nonprofit partners who were stressed and resource-strapped even before the political climate shifted. As ever, listening and empathizing will be critical skill sets for philanthropic leaders to lean on, as will the ability to think creatively about how to deploy or earmark capital and provide partners with the information they need.

Put your own mask on first. With an evolving mandate and a set of stepped-up anxieties for partners and community members, philanthropic leaders must remember that taking care of themselves and ensuring that they are in a healthy mental space will be a pragmatic concern as much as a spiritual one. Ask yourself what you need in order to be okay to show up for others in the way that is required of you in this moment — is it more sleep? Better hydration? More dedicated time with loved ones? Finding new and innovative ways to provide support for community partners will also be critically important, whether it’s funding new avenues for legal support or collaboratives for leaders in the trenches so that they are emotionally supported with new ways for processing and keeping their own heads up.