NFG's Objectives for the Toolbox
NFG'S OBJECTIVES FOR THE TOOLBOX
The CO Toolbox has several objectives:
- To increase attention in the
philanthropic community and the broader
public to how CO makes changes that benefit
low- to moderate-income people and
their neighborhoods and communities;
- To explain what CO is and how
to recognize it, and to show the relationship
of CO to other strategies for community
change;
- To
illustrate and underscore the many concrete
accomplishments that CO has made in
galvanizing ordinary people to work for a
higher quality of life in areas like
housing, jobs, education, the environment,
health and more;
- To encourage NFG members and other
funders to consider making CO a
priority in their grantmaking, and to integrate
their CO support with other
grantmaking investments for neighborhood and
community revitalization;
- To provide advice and linkages that go
well beyond this text for additional
learning about the CO field;
- To highlight lessons and promising
grantmaking strategies from foundations
already investing in CO; and
- To share lessons on why and how some grantmakers who had not earlier supported CO decided to do so.
The Toolbox should be useful to a broad range of funders - from small, local foundations to larger national funders; from those beginning to think about how CO might fit with and strengthen their grantmaking to those with years of experience; from those who focus entirely on local community development to those whose grantmaking extends to broader geographic and policy arenas; from those whose grantmaking responds to unsolicited proposals to those who place priority on foundation-determined initiatives.