The Bridgespan Group

Happy New Year! Best wishes to you and yours for a fulfilling 2023.

We are deeply grateful to our clients, funders, peers, and colleagues for their passion and commitment this past year, and look forward to working together for a better world in 2023.

☕ Looking back at 2022, do you have any stand-out experiences? Any goals you're trying to live into for 2023?

⁣📸 Earlier this year, Bailey at Bridgespan Boston shared this photo from a Women in Tech conference she attended with her IS team colleagues. ⠀
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Aside from being a great training opportunity, it was also a chance for several of our team members to meet in person for the first time!

📊 To get right, must use methods that engage, respect, and benefit the communities with whom they work.

There is an ongoing shift in the social sector, a growing recognition that need space to tailor less to funders and more to the needs of their communities.

Communities and constituents know what they need better than anyone.

In our new report, we provide practical advice for nonprofits interested in incorporating into their measurement approaches to improve their and learning.

📄 Read the report:

How Nonprofits Can Incorporate Equity into Their Measurement, Evaluation, and Learning How nonprofits can incorporate equity into their measurement, evaluation, and learning.

“Those of us who are running towards liberation, towards a vision of a different social and economic order, we are one team, running a relay race together – handing the baton back and forth to each other all the time. It’s in our collective that we find our strength and our purpose – it’s in our collective that the race is won.”
– Urvashi Vaid

Last week Bridgespan hosted an inaugural Equitable Philanthropy gathering on Martha's Vineyard.

Bridgespan partner Darren Isom shared in his reflections:

"I got to host some of my favorite folks in philanthropy for a beautiful, healing, and hope-filled conversation on the 'adjacent possible' and the future of equitable . It was easily a career highlight, a wonderful reminder that BIPOC brilliance and beauty abound and that although the fight ahead is a real one, we’re in excellent hands — we were all made for this moment."

We're so grateful to everyone who made it to the Vineyard and thankful for the healing, hope, and community there fostered. Here's to the work ahead.

When we embarked on the Pay-What-It-Takes initiative, we were curious to dig deeper into and ' perspectives on what adequate financial support means.

Two years later, we've found that funders and have strikingly different views, strongly suggesting the need to improve communication and trust-building between them.

Read more in India Development Review : https://idronline.org/article/philanthropy-csr/how-nonprofits-can-pitch-their-true-cost-needs-to-funders/

The Pay-What-It-Takes India Initiative is a collaboration between The Bridgespan Group and ATE Chandra Foundation, Children's Investment Fund Foundation, EdelGive Foundation, and the Ford Foundation.

How nonprofits can pitch their true-cost needs to funders | IDR Nonprofits and funders don't always align on the importance of funding organisational development. Understanding funder motivations can help bridge this gap.

Episodes 3 & 4 of Darren Isom's podcast Dreaming in Color are out now! Subscribe and listen here: http://bspan.org/dreaming

The most recent episodes feature guests Carmen Rojas, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer at the Marguerite Casey Foundation and Raymond Foxworth, PhD, Vice President at First Nations Development Institute & Visiting Scholar at The University of New Mexico - UNM.

These candid conversations—covering a wide range of topics including philanthropy, indigenous land rights, and innovation—are not to be missed. We'd love to hear your thoughts, please let us know what you think 🗨

🔊 TODAY is the day! Subscribe to listen to the first two episodes of Bridgespan Partner Darren Isom's podcast Dreaming in Color: https://dreaming-in-color.captivate.fm/

Episode one, The Relay Race to Liberation, features a conversation with the late and iconic Urvashi Vaid of The Vaid Group.

In Episode 2, Staying Centered in Joy, Darren connects with the powerful Rhonda Broussard, author of One Good Question and CEO/Founder of Beloved Community.

📅 Dreaming in Color will update every Thursday, offering leaders of color space to share how they have leveraged their unique assets and abilities to embrace excellence, drive impact, and more fully define what success looks like in the .

Listen on the Bridgespan website: https://bspan.org/3OiMdlb

It is a joy to be working with Last Mile Health on their , supporting them in their mission to improve access to and quality of essential for people living in rural and remote communities.

💖 Thank you for sharing this team photo!

We've just wrapped up two days of great conversation focused on Last Mile Health's next strategic plan. We're grateful for the support from our partners at The Bridgespan Group--and the chance to collaborate in person in Accra!

📬 We want to hear from you! What have you read, heard, or watched recently that left an impression on you as a leader? Share your resources using this form or in the comments below: https://www.bridgespan.org/landing-pages/recommend-a-reading?utm_campaign=newsletter-rec-reads&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

📚🔉 We're looking for the best social sector resources you've come across so far in 2022. Whether it's a book, article, podcast, or another resource, we're eager to hear about it.

We will share back a list of your "recommended resources" via our LeadersMatter newsletter in August.

Recommend a Nonprofit Resource We want to share your recommendations!

Reflecting on , here's a story that is rarely told: Women are the fastest growing population of incarcerated people in the US, and the majority are either mothers or pregnant.

🍼 In fact, 60%+ women in state prisons have a child under the age of 18.

📈 The growth rate of for women in recent decades is twice that of men.

1/4 of all women incarcerated have not been convicted of a crime but are imprisoned because they are unable to make bail while awaiting trial.

In essence, these women are jailed for being too poor. Do we have your attention yet?

https://www.philanthropy.com/article/on-mothers-day-lets-remember-and-support-moms-behind-bars

Feminist movements continue to show us that we can solve social problems and achieve transformational change with flexible, sustained, community-driven investments.

Our new report with Shake the Table highlights 5 things philanthropists can do to support feminist movements.

Read more: https://bspan.org/3LPP8QY

💻 : Philanthropy’s Role in the Movement to Reimagine Criminal Justice
📅 Thursday, May 12, 2022
⏰ 1-2 pm ET
🖊 Sign up: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/3616474755818/WN_jVVP-5moRVOT9pADtW9bQA

Of the funds disbursed to causes after the racial justice uprisings of 2020, little has been invested in a core issue- criminal justice reform.

Organizations and leaders who take a movement building approach find fundraising even more challenging.

What role can play when it comes to movement building?

New Bridgespan research on movement building and transforming the criminal legal system offers guidance to funders on how to invest resources to effect .

Drawing from this research, and joined by leaders in the field, you’re invited to attend this webinar to:

- Gain a deeper understanding of where philanthropic resources are needed in the movement to transform criminal justice
- Understand what movement leaders need from their funders to be support their success
- Hear about the mindset and practice shifts that enable effective funding of movement leaders

🌧 Can't make it live? Sign up anyway, we will email you the slides and a recording of the session afterwards.

This webinar is presented by Bridgespan’s Allana Jackson and Alexandra Williams, and features guest speakers Brittany White, Decarceration Director at LIVE FREE US, and Nicole Boucher, Chief Strategy and Operations officer at The Just Trust.

Free webinar: "Philanthropy’s Role in the Movement to Reimagine Criminal Justice" Despite the 2020 surge in philanthropic commitments to racial equity, a significant gap remains between what was promised and what’s been given. Of the funds disbursed to racial equity, few have invested in criminal justice reform, one of the core issues that inspired the racial justice uprisings ...

Best wishes to you and yours for a healthy and fulfilling new year ahead!

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🎉 We'd like to extend a huge congratulations to the recent participants in the Bridgespan Nonprofit Development Program!

Our first cohort focused on Achieving Strategic Clarity module has just wrapped up and was a big success. The participating teams made tremendous progress in clarifying foundational elements of their strategy, and it was our honor to work with them.

We would also like to thank Aditya Natrajan, Luis Miranda, and Amit Chandra for taking out the time to share their valuable perspectives with the participants.

The Bridgespan Nonprofit Development Program (BNDP) enables NGO executive teams to tackle critical management issues related to strategy and talent. Each program combines self-paced online lessons with offline coaching and facilitation support over a 14-week period.

If you’re an NGO executive team member based in India or South Asia and are curious about how the program could help your organization, please drop us an email at [email protected]

Listen: Bridgespan Partner and Fund the People Advisory Council member Libbie Landles-Cobb joined the Fund the People podcast for an episode that goes deep into nonprofit talent nerdom.

Libbie’s research helps to shift the narrative in the field from a “leadership deficit” to a “leadership development deficit.”

On this episode, she shares her personal childhood motivation for engaging in social change work, and discusses her own and Bridgespan's evolution regarding the relationship between business practices and the sector.

Have a listen, and please share your thoughts!

https://bspan.org/34tfBjb

Closing the Leadership Development Deficit - with Libbie Landles-Cobb, The Bridgespan Group by Fund The People: A Podcast with Rusty Stahl • A podcast on Anchor In this episode, we go deep into nonprofit talent nerdom with Libbie Landles-Cobb, a Partner at The Bridgespan Group and Fund the People Advisory Council member. We discuss Libbie’s research, which helps us to shift the narrative in the field from a “leadership deficit” to a “leadership deve...

Webinar (6/8): How your nonprofit can balance today's needs while investing in .

Keeping your core strong while you isn’t easy, but it is sometimes necessary to meet ever-growing needs.

We’ve found that a concept called Engine 1/Engine 2, developed by Bain & Company, can help nonprofits balance the strategic and organizational tensions required to innovate.

Join us for a complimentary webinar to explore this concept and talk with social sector leaders (Anne Mei Chang, Author, Former Chief Innovation Officer at USAID; Melissa Connelly, CEO of OneGoal; and Dr. Jordan Kassalow, founder of VisionSpring and co-founder of EYElliance) about their experiences applying it.

https://bspan.org/3wyWHn2

Free webinar: Innovate for Impact with Engine 1 / Engine 2 A familiar challenge for many nonprofits is that as they succeed and grow, they find themselves pulled by two competing forces. On one hand, they want to expand their existing programs and services to meet ever-growing needs. On the other, they feel pulled to innovate to develop new solutions that c...