At Grassroots Grantmakers, we are raring to go! Our 2017 was full of ideas and setting the stage, and now we look forward to sharing these opportunities with you in 2018:

• A quarterly webinar series about grassroots grantmaking, featuring successful practitioners and inspiring examples of community change
• A regional approach to strengthening grassroots grantmaking capacity in four different areas of the country.
• An When Reexpansion of our blog to share happenings and learnings from our board members, members, allies and you! As a thought leader in philanthropy, we take seriously this platform we have for sharing ideas and practices that shift the culture of philanthropy.

Would you like to write a blog for Grassroots Grantmakers sharing hour learning, challenges or successes working with the grassroots in philanthropy? Contact Lisa here!

Please join Grassroots Grantmakers today! You can join as an organization by clicking here or as an individual by clicking here.

When Resident Leadership Creates Real Change:

Manchester Growing Together, Pittsburgh

Being committed to lifting up resident voice and leadership within philanthropy means we get front row seats on remarkable and effective efforts that result in real change, not just for certain neighborhoods, but for all of us.

Effective neighborhood change agents create healthier cities where they live, because vibrant and strong neighborhoods have a beneficial echo effect in nearby communities. But they benefit us all, whether we live there or not, because they also strengthen democracy, provide examples of practices that can be used in other places and inspire creative solutions in different contexts.

Our time in Pittsburgh at the On the Ground in September was rich, and we are happy to share with you one of the organizations that is a leader in social change in the Northside’s Manchester neighborhood:  Manchester Growing Together. Its leadership is rooted in the neighborhood, with wide networks of relationship across the demographic and economic spectrum.

Manchester Growing Together is so much more than a ‘community garden’ because of the relationships that have formed there. Advances in community safety, understanding and healing trauma, education achievement, economic development, job development, family strengthening, health promotion, sobriety support and more have been birthed through the many activities at MGT. We see this as a prime example of grassroots philanthropy.

Manchester Growing Together does not look at its work as simply growing food, but as providing a safe space where people are seen as whole human beings with gifts to share. This generative and creative approach is shared by MGT’s foundation partners, The Sprout Fund, The Buhl Foundtion and One Northside, who played major roles in our Pittsburgh On the Ground. These funders are shaping processes of grantmaking and philanthropy to meaningfully involve residents in the many neighborhoods they invest in.

Manchester Growing Together is an example of successful grassroots leadership creating change with a community, and we look forward to continuing our relationship with them!