Q1 Impact Summary
The Impact of Collective Capacity and Resources
We have been working hard during the first quarter of the year to ensure we meet our goals to serve and expand philanthropy in 2024. As part of serving philanthropy, we will be investing our efforts in building deeper relationships, collective capacity, and philanthropic structure. To continue expanding philanthropy, we will continue to raise awareness, attract resources, and identify new stakeholders for partnerships.
We kicked off the year by welcoming new members and reconnecting with our membership at our onboarding session. Please join us in welcoming Policy Link as part of our new members. We also had Virginia Quiñones join our team as Operations Manager this year. Finally, our Board of Directors was ratified at the beginning of the year. We continue growing as the leading philanthropic collective on the island as we prepare for the upcoming year.
Serving
Building Relationships
Building deeper and more meaningful connections is among our top priorities as we embark on our collective journey. We continue strengthening our relationships with each other through our regular membership programming. During most of our membership events, members can share their work as well as have more intimate one-on-one interactions. We kicked off the year with an inspiring presentation by Titín Foundation in February followed by an Action Dialogue + Members Meetup hybrid event in March. Our members have been enthusiastically showing up to our events and actively contributing to fruitful conversations about philanthropic strategy. Titin Foundation’s Public Policy Associate Director, Jeirca Medina, shared that “El sostener el espacio de organizaciones con diferentes perspectivas, ideas y temas nos ayuda a expandir esa mirada más allá y ver otras maneras.”
Collective Capacity
As part of our continued intention to adopt transformational practices and strengthen our expertise, we have developed two insightful learning pieces based on our latest data reports. The first piece, titled ‘Insights into Active Donor Entities in Puerto Rico During 2021 and 2022’, explores the landscape of active donor entities contributing to the social sector. The second piece, ‘Navigating Impact: Funders and Nonprofit Organizations Impact Areas’, provides a comprehensive overview of the impact areas of funders and nonprofit organizations in Puerto Rico.
Building Strategies
Creating spaces to advance strategic philanthropic initiatives continues to be one of our top priorities. Collaborating in the creation of philanthropic strategies as a collective increases the impact of our efforts and brings about creative ways to tackle the lack of equity in Puerto Rico. Our collective’s diverse interests also enriches and leverages the reach of our philanthropic objectives allowing us to impact multiple sectors and issues.
Our Action Dialogues continue to be the space where our members openly discuss areas of interest in aligning and partnering up to advance equity across a wide array of social issues. This year our collective has once again shown up with renewed interest in a diversity of areas ranging from community-based focused education initiatives to gender and sexuality equity. In some of our membership meetings, we were also able to think together about impact investment and began our first Public Policy Landscape, which we plan to publish in the next few months. Hazel Colón, Director of Programs and Strategies at Titín Foundation shared that our strategic spaces are valuable because “Se provocan conversaciones difíciles y necesarias que promueven el cambio y ayudan a una filantropía más efectiva”. FiPR collective’s eagerness to keep learning through professional development and the identification of gaps in philanthropic investment is central to strengthening our sector long-term.
Transparency
Our continued interest in transparency has led us to keep growing our existing initiatives as well as create new ones to grow in this area. We believe that transparency will allow us to build more credibility, recognition, and influence as a sector. As part of our efforts to advance transparency this year, we are launching our Philanthropy Landscape Initiative. We have begun developing the structure for this initiative by identifying the topics that will be covered and the methodology we will be implementing. This tool will inform the development of strategic philanthropic investment through a better understanding of how funding is distributed in Puerto Rico and the gaps therein.
Expanding
Collective Intelligence
We facilitated a hands-on workshop as part of the launch of our Collective Intelligence Hub in January. Foundations and non-profit organizations attended our event to learn about our platform’s vision and main objectives. Participants were able to explore the different functionalities and resources available in the platform. We also discussed how the hub serves as a unifying platform to expand knowledge about the social sector as well as to promote the creation of more impactful strategies. You can find and explore the different resources readily available at our Collective Intelligence Hub here.
To continue expanding our resources library, we are now onto the second year in a row of producing our podcast with regular monthly guests. From equity in technology and the role of transparency in building democracy to measuring systemic change and community-centered storytelling, our podcasts will surely inspire you to continue growing your philanthropic practices and investments this year!
Make sure to check our first quarter’s episodes out if you haven’t yet:
Attracting Resources
A crucial area of growth for us this year is to attract more resources for Puerto Rico in a strategic and committed way. This year we will grow our operating initiatives, funds, and services to keep expanding philanthropic investment that advances equity and justice in the archipelago. Starting in 2024, the FORWARD Puerto Rico Fund will serve as a permanent strategic tool for funders and grantmakers to partner up in the creation of funding initiatives that support infrastructural work in the social sector.
We also began the final year of the three-year initiative Robusteciendo la Justicia Social (RJS) with the last payment of $881,000 for the seven participating organizations. We kicked off the first 2024 cohort meeting with two key questions: what does impact mean to you, and how do you know you achieved it? Based on the conversations generated over the past two years, we have encouraged our community of practice to focus on measuring their efforts and progress. We also prioritize the analysis of the various challenges that organizations focused on systemic change, equity, and social justice face when trying to quantify their impact. This year we look forward to strategically developing this conversation among our community of practice. As an intermediary organization, this initiative is one of the many ways in which we unify the most up-to-date information on social sector efforts to increase the long-term impact on systemic change.
We endorsed the launch of “Aquí nos quedamos”, a proposal to reduce the impact of short-term leases on community displacement, developed by participants of the RJS community of practice and with the endorsement of one of our members, Hispanic Federation. You can read more about this report here.
Finally, our Executive Director Glenisse supported in the Peter Alfond Foundation Trustee Meeting in Puerto Rico. She shared about the sector and how to continue expanding its impact. Glenisse is also part of the GIA board and as part of this commitment, she participated in the Reclaiming the Border Narrative Symposium to learn how philanthropy can support artists and storytellers to reclaim the border narrative. These activities inform her perspective when working and addressing local issues from a broader frame of reference.
We are inspired by how much has happened in only a few months and how our membership has shown up to continue strengthening the philanthropic sector. This is only the beginning and we are looking forward to continue building with our collective throughout this crucial year.
“La equidad debería de estar presente en todo. Debe de estar presente en el espacio municipal, debe de estar presente en el gobierno central, debe de estar presente en nuestras relaciones personales.”
Robusteciendo la justicia social
