Meaningful Action that Leverages & Leads:
My family, teachers, and mentors always told me to successfully make things happen it is critical to “Plan the Work and Work the Plan”. When issues, situations, or needs changed, adjust accordingly.
Philanthropy WV is two years into implementing our new strategic plan, “MEANINGFUL ACTION: Learning, Leveraging, & Leading 2017-2020”. We are honoring our commitment to serve our members’ needs provided through your input. This is resulting in Philanthropy WV’s board and staff planning our work and working the plan.
In asking for member input to the strategic plan, we received overwhelming responses from members for us to provide ways to partner and tackle major challenges impacting our citizens, communities, and state. This is along a continuum for different members wanting to find ways to become involved with tackling the opioid crisis, economic & community development, workforce growth, improving our state’s education system, just to name a few.
2018 is the year that we are digging deeper into this work by focusing on the Leveraging and Leading portion of our strategic plan. We polled members what are the top priorities and the responses were asking for opportunities around:
- Education (Early Childhood to Adulthood)
- Drug Crisis/Opioid Epidemic
- Community Economic Development (workforce, impact investing, etc.)
- Nonprofit Strengthening
I am pleased to share thanks to the hard work of our staff and board that we are offering a variety of learning, leveraging, and leading opportunities. Such as:
- Education Funders Affinity Group is expanding thanks to an investment from the Steeley Foundation who will allow us to expand our work plus our next Quarterly session is August 16th from 2 to 4 PM in Bridgeport, WV
- Four-part series on “Entry Points: Philanthropy’s Response to the Opioid Crisis” with our most recent webinar of which I thank Kim Tieman of the Benedum Foundation co-presenting with Susie Mullens of the WV Office of Drug Control Policy. Our next session is on September 13th
- September 10 & 11: We are hosting the Building Economic Development Philanthropy Capacity Seminar in Bridgeport, WV for all foundations and corporate giving programs identifying approaches to improve your community/region’s economy
- Providing ongoing professional development on how your grantmaking can strengthen your grantee’s sustainability and impact in your community/region
We are developing these programs/resources to serve you. If you have questions, need another resource, or have ideas to share, please do not hesitate to let me know. While we have to be careful how much we take on as a small, but strong team, the focus is to support our members in creating thriving communities for all citizens. Check out our website at philanthropywv.org for an overview of the new resources and programs coming up.
Thank you for the honor of serving you and the great work your organizations are doing,
Paul