What Does It Mean to Be Community Led?

I wrote a post this week about why the big public conversations happening around creating community led programs and organizations isn’t centering the organizations that are already community led, because they come from within the communities they serve. And then this morning, a fantastic piece by Vanessa Daniel went up on the New York Times: Philanthropists Bench Women of Color, the MVPs of Social Change, which says everything I was trying to say, but better.

Ms. Daniel is the Executive Director of Groundswell Fund, a foundation that is centering organizations built and run by the communities they serve. Everyone interested in using philanthropy to support justice should read this piece, and continue the conversation started in it about how to push for systemic change in the nonprofit sector (looking at your first foundations and funders) to truly support community led organizations.