Q2 Impact Summary
Strengthening the Philanthropic Sector to Expand our Impact
We continue to work hard on building relationships and aligning our collective strategies as the year picks up. During this second quarter of the year, we held space for our members while also working behind the scenes to build resources and experiences to deepen the impact of our sector. Check out the different programming, tools and experiences we made possible since last time we shared updates!
Serving
Building Relationships
Our events were filled with amazing news about our members’ projects and a willingness to think collectively about the philanthropic sector. We kept learning from each others’ practices and initiatives this past quarter. During our Members Brunch events, Fundación Banco Popular shared with us about their efforts to support Taller Salud with the Cimarrona Fund, a pilot project to foster financial inclusion and independence for survivors of gender-based violence.
Hispanic Federation, on the other hand, updated us on their public policy efforts to regulate short-term rentals and its impact on the housing crisis. The policy changes they introduced have now been approved by the House of Representatives. They also received a grant from the Puerto Rico Energy Resiliency Fund to develop an initiative that will educate communities on the benefits and inner-workings of solar power systems.
Finally, during our May Members Meetup, we looked at the landscape of philanthropic investment in different areas and discussed the importance of increasing efforts to continue sharing information, align initiatives, and understand how to best support the social issues we’re invested in. An interest in continuing to work collectively to advance impactful philanthropy was at the center of all of our membership events this quarter.
Collective Capacity
As part of our Collective Intelligence initiative, we collected and analyzed data from 59 nonprofit organizations, and created the data report “Active Donor Entities in Puerto Rico: 2022-2023”. The report offers a comprehensive view of the active donor entities in Puerto Rico over the course of the past few years with a focus on donor locations, trends and stability. A comparative analysis of active donor entities from 2022 to 2023 included in the report identifies trends in donor activity. The report also explores recurring donors to assess the stability and commitment of long-term funding sources. It has been accessed more than 350 times on our website since it was published, make sure to check it out here if you haven’t yet.
As an entity that serves and expands the philanthropic sector in Puerto Rico, we created a page to consolidate philanthropic resources. Through this effort, our intention is to support our membership and philanthropic entities to use their resources effectively and adopt practices that strengthen equity in Puerto Rico.
Following our interest in further expanding our collective work, we have begun preparations for our annual convening Leading as a Collective that will be taking place at Fundación Luis Muñoz Marín this year. We hope to continue crafting collective efforts by bringing together our diverse group of members and other guests from the field. Part of our efforts this quarter have been focused on thinking about the type of resources and activities that will elevate our conversations into specific actions we can take in partnership with each other. We are looking forward to the potential collaborations that can emerge during this time.
Building Strategies
We held our monthly Action Dialogues in April, May and June. Our members were eager to engage in the development of our Philanthropy Landscape Initiative, an effort to help us better understand the current state of philanthropic investment on the island. We completed landscapes focused on the impact areas of education, public policy, and arts and culture. This exercise allowed us to have deeper conversations about where our efforts should be directed when it comes to creating more equity in the philanthropic field. One key area of growth we identified was transparency, diversification of efforts, and alignment of resources. In the upcoming months, we hope to continue developing landscapes in the areas of civic participation and climate change.
Transparency
We keep creating tools that can contribute to transparency in the philanthropic field. As part of this effort we developed one new tool through our Collective Intelligence Initiative. This quarter we launched the Anaquel de Palabras, a beautiful dictionary of philanthropic terms used by Filantropía Puerto Rico and developed by our team to increase access to language related to the field.
Our podcast lineup for this quarter focused on transformational practices to strengthen the social sector. From sustainable fiscal sponsorship models to the role of participatory philanthropy in shifting power, make sure to listen to this quarter’s podcast to learn more about what your peers are doing on the ground!
Expanding
Collective Intelligence
We redesigned our Collective Intelligence Hub to offer a more intuitive and visual experience. Now you can see the resources as visual cards giving you a preview before accessing them. We also renewed the filter section, which now offers access to all filters. The number of resources available on our Collective Intelligence Hub was increased from 157 to 174.
In addition to continuing to build our resources library through this initiative, part of our efforts this year have been directed to ensuring accessibility for folks with diverse abilities. Now our page counts with features that facilitate vision and audio access. You can find more information about the new types of access by clicking on the icon on the right corner of our page that looks like this: 
Attracting Resources
We continue to expand philanthropy through our Robusteciendo la Justicia Social community of practice, now in its third year. For our cohort meeting this quarter, organizations self-evaluated their organizational development. They also received ideas, suggestions and input from their peers on common challenges, progress and common problems. You can read more about our meeting here.
Finally, after two years, the FLCP PSO-community of practice is coming to an end, and we gathered in Savannah, Georgia for our final in-person meeting to connect and discuss how to continue our work beyond this cohort. Explore our journey of learning best practices for contributing to the philanthropic ecosystem and listen to our podcast series this quarter about this experience.
We continue to work hard on building relationships and aligning our collective strategies as the year picks up. During this second quarter of the year, we held space for our members while also working behind the scenes to build resources and experiences to deepen the impact of our sector. Check out the different programming, tools and experiences we made possible since last time we shared updates!
