How Volunteering Gives Us Strong Roots for Strong Giving

NCRP strives to transform philanthropy so that it more directly supports organizations that use strategies like community organizing, and supports the people who drive and benefit from those organizations, particularly underserved communities. NCRP’s research and policy work is highly regarded in our sector and we spend a lot of time in the field to help philanthropy be more responsive to the communities and causes we believe in. Our work is based clearly on our values and our mission, and each of us is passionate about what we do.

In addition, many of us volunteer with organizations that use social justice strategies and serve marginalized communities, and draw on our personal passions to supplement our organizational work. Here are a few ways the NCRP staff support organizations that keep us in direct relationship with the people we hope will benefit most from our work.

I serve as the board chair for the Women of the Dove Foundation, a small foundation through Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. that provides college scholarships to Black women and funds other charitable activities in Washington, D.C. I also serve on the Parish Pastoral Council at St. Augustine Church, and help with efforts to train leaders, and organize church members and others in our neighborhood around issues like affordable housing, homeless services and other social justice issues.

Senior Fellow Dan Petegorsky is treasurer on the board of Every Voice Center, which works to move our nation toward a system of publicly-financed elections to balance power between organized money and every-day people. He also serves on the board of Communities United for People, the parent organization of Enlace. Enlace is a strategic alliance of low-wage worker centers, unions, and community organizations in Mexico and in the U.S. that campaign together to motivate abusive multi-sector transnational corporations to treat workers and communities with dignity and respect.
Director of Foundation Assessment Lisa Ranghelli volunteers in her local community with the Prison Birth Project (PBP), helping with grant prospecting and fundraising. She’s motivated by her strong belief that our society has dehumanized incarcerated and formerly incarcerated members of our communities, and that all women deserve dignity and respect as they become parents. She learned about PBP through her participation on the grants committee of the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts, which recently embraced making three-year operating grants that support community collaboration to achieve systemic change for women and girls.
Executive Director Aaron Dorfman serves as vice chair of the Center for Popular Democracy’s board of directors. He loves it because it keeps him connected to his past life as a community organizer, and because they do such amazing work fighting for fairness across the nation.
Philanthropy Fellow Jocelyn O’Rourke runs a summer community food drive, and plans to include her young daughter for the first time this year. Recognizing that people may have items to donate, but no time to distribute them, Jocelyn posts flyers in her neighborhood soliciting nonperishable food items, and then drops them off at Mid County United Ministries. She views her time spent gathering and collecting food and dropping it off as small help, but valuable.
Project Associate Caitlin Duffy has become increasingly involved in DC Time Bank, coordinating events, membership and the planning committee. The movement’s creator, Edgar Cahn, and his partner Christine Gray describe time banking as a “way to link untapped social capacity to unmet social needs” that “advances goals that money does not and cannot advance.” Caitlin also recently joined the Board of Instigators for the Diverse City Fund, a small grantmaker that focuses on growing community leadership and supporting grassroots projects in D.C. Her new role assisting with communications and fundraising helps to ground her professional work in a local model of social justice philanthropy.
Director of Administration Beverley Samuda-Wylder volunteers with Suited for Change, which provides both professional clothing and training for lower-income women. She has seen first-hand lower-income Jamaican women working the fields, selling their harvest, collaborating with men on tough physical tasks and raising families on very little, traversing the challenges of economics and opportunity. These experiences helped shape her perspective of womanhood and taught her lessons of strength, courage and power. At Suited for Change, Beverley assists with monthly clothing sales, personal donation drives, sorting donations and assisting clients at suiting appointments.
Research and Policy Associate Ryan Schlegel and Communications Associate Alison Howard help at Capitol Hill Group Ministry with homeless street outreach. As volunteers they canvas the Capitol Hill neighborhood with food, drinks and other necessities. They build relationships with homeless neighbors and provide them with information on services, with the goal of showing that there are people who care about them and who are available to help them. This volunteer role is important to them because it’s a personal way to help out in their community, and because it’s a D.C.-based organization of faith that is strongly committed to social justice.

NCRP staff feel strongly that it’s important to find ways to be intimately connected to the impact that your philanthropy work has on the most marginalized people in our communities. Remaining close to organizations that offer services on-the-ground reminds us how important it is to invest in them. How do you give back to your community? And how can you better consider social justice organizations in your philanthropy, and how can you help your colleagues do the same?

Jeanné Isler is field director at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Follow @NCRP and @j_lachapel on Twitter.