Our Mission and Values
Fund for Idaho recognizes that many of Idaho’s social and environmental policies
are systemically regressive. Our state's
social systems and political policies routinely perpetuate the privilege of a few, at great
cost to the many who lack power or money, particularly minorities and low-income
people.
Motivated
by many individual experiences of injustice and inequity in their communities, small nonprofit groups in Idaho are
organizing to address these problems on a systemic level. The primary challenge for these groups is the lack of available grant
funding.
Data shows that in the last 10 years, available grant funds
have actually decreased. Further, traditional funders use grantmaking processes that rely on input from donors and routinely
exclude input from groups working on the issues, the very people who have the most
hands-on knowledge about how and where funds can be most effectively
utilized. Fund for Idaho’s
vision is to see that power shared.
Activists create Fund for Idaho as an Idaho-based resource
for progressive environmental and social change groups. We bring those doing social change work (i.e., those working on gender equity, racial &
ethnic equality and liberty and justice for all) into our grantmaking
processes to better inform our decisions on how Fund for Idaho will allocate and direct its
grant funds and other philanthropic resources. Our purpose is to increase grant
funding and other philanthropic resources available in Idaho to provide people, including those in
need, with the means to solve their own problems, change unfair social
structures and build vital communities.
Fund for Idaho’s mission is to create a more just, compassionate,
environmentally sound and healthy society in Idaho through strategic grant-making.
Our mission is implemented through two primary strategies or core services.
These are:
- To
provide donors with unique means/opportunities to provide financial and
other resources to support Idaho’s community-based organizations and
programs that reach beyond surface symptoms of social and environmental
injustices to address their root causes; and,
- To provide an inclusive grant-making process that
actively engages people affected by a problem in identifying and pursuing
solutions.
Fund for Idaho is based on and guided in our work by
the following tenets:
- Generosity is the virtue that produces peace.
- Philanthropy can be a spiritual journey for donors through
their own exploration and expression of personal values.
- We envision Idaho
as a place where all are valued, honored and respected.
- We are accountable to the communities we serve.
- Inclusiveness and transparency are hallmarks of our staff,
our board and our work.
- Our processes foster the creation of respectful peer
relationships between donors and those who benefit from their philanthropy.
- Creating and maintaining relationships with the activist
groups doing the work on the ground is critical to the success of our
organization.
- It is our duty to raise awareness
of social and environmental injustice in Idaho — to "comfort the disturbed
and disturb the comfortable."
| “We’re all in this together!” |
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