Walter & Elise Haas Fund

Join our team! We're hiring a Qualitative/Mixed-Methods Researcher to team up with our Director of Research & Evaluation to conduct foundational and iterative mixed-methods research that will inform and ground the work of teams across the foundation. This is a hybrid role for candidates who reside in the Greater Seattle or San Francisco Bay areas.

Justice Sonya Sotomayor cited EBCLC client, Erin Spencer, in her dissent in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson. It wasn’t how we expected our client advocacy to come before our nation’s highest court, but it was vital that our work served as a pointed reminder of what’s at stake in the upcoming election and of our power as individuals and communities to be civically engaged. Read our statement below:

Filming Day! I am so appreciative of the Walter & Elise Haas Fund and Silent Victory Films for the opportunity to share about the impact of the East Bay Community Law Center with a larger audience.

Creative Work Fund is excited to announce 17 new grant awards to Bay Area artists and organizations collaborating to develop new works of visual art, theater, music composition, dance, artistic activism, social practice, and more. Natalia Vigil, Relationship Manager for the Arts and Creative Work Fund comments, “These projects exemplify how artists create meaningful work through collaborations with people, places, and matters that are important to them. Grantees continue to show us how the making of art together is a necessary act, and when artists and organizations are in partnership, they strengthen the Bay Area.” Funded projects speak to how artists are groundbreaking, with projects rooted in the power of history, visibility and imagination; projects that activate public space, using art as an ecstatic form of community organizing and reminding us that the future begins out in the open; and projects that model collective care, transformative healing, and joy. Learn more: https://bit.ly/cwf2024 #artistfunding #grants #creativeworkfund #bayareaartists #collaboration #artistsupport

We are grateful to Jamie Allison and the Walter and Elise Haas Fund for this instructive piece on how philanthropic organizations can support nonprofit well-being. As a Black woman led organization, we welcome partnerships that help us create a healthy nonprofit culture and value our unique contributions to the field. https://lnkd.in/eDfGhtmG

"I believe that women of color leaders experience an outsized responsibility to be the best — for funders, for employees, for their communities — and therefore reach burnout more quickly and feel it more acutely. Moreover, these organizations are often nimble and pride themselves on being responsive to community needs and therefore must balance resource constraints, managing growth, and addressing complex stakeholder demands." I deeply appreciate this thoughtful piece from Executive Director, Jamie Allison. She names what she and the team at the Walter & Elise Haas Fund put into practice in relationship with East Bay Community Law Center and other Endeavor Fund grantees. As Jamie notes, woman of color leadership thrives from generous philanthropic investment- in our well-being as well as our organizational resources. https://lnkd.in/g2EjVYgg

🔥 Burning Hot Reading List: All the blog posts on new CEP research about nonprofit burnout and funder understanding, concern, and response (or lack thereof) of this crisis in the nonprofit workforce. Posts are by Center for Effective Philanthropy staff and a variety of guest writers. The first two are research summaries by some of the report authors. These are followed by l reaction pieces from across the field. We appreciate CEP for inviting Fund the People and our CEO Rusty Stahl to be among these guest authors, and that our work is offered as a resource for funders in the report materials. THE BLOG POSTS: 1. This Year’s State of Nonprofits Highlights Mounting Concern About Burnout. By Christina Im Senior Research Analyst, and Seara Grundhoefer, Research Analyst, CEP https://lnkd.in/euGXsbBg 2. Foundations Are Concerned About Nonprofit Staff Burnout, Too. By Seara Grundhoefer, Research Analyst, Center for Effective Philanthropy https://lnkd.in/eDp2P5YZ 3. To Ensure Nonprofit Well-Being, Invest in Wages, Workload, and Working Conditions. By Rusty Stahl, Founder, President & CEO, Fund the People https://lnkd.in/e-wFa79K 4. Enhancing Grantee Well-Being Leads to Long-Term Impact. By Linda Grdina, Research Elder, The Wellbeing Project https://lnkd.in/erFMMEcH 5. Funders: Let’s Stop Making Nonprofits Choose Between Balanced Budgets and Burnout. By Jamie Allison, Executive Director, Walter & Elise Haas Fund https://lnkd.in/eDfGhtmG 6. Adopting a Mental Health Mindset Will Help Both Funders and Nonprofits Thrive. By Elizabeth Brown, Managing Director, Mental Health and Well-Being, Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation https://lnkd.in/efEjg73n 7. Let’s Go Beyond ‘One Foundation’: The Promise of Changing Practices in Philanthropy. By Claire Poelking, Program Officer, MacArthur Foundation You can find all these posts and lots more on them CEP blog: https://cep.org/blog/ THE RESEARCH REPORTS: Here are links to the two studies to which all these blog posts are a response: 1. State of Nonprofits 2024: What Funders Need to Know. By Christina Im, Seara Grundhoefer, and Elisha Smith Arrillaga, Ph.D., Vice President of Research, Center for Effective Philanthropy https://lnkd.in/euVJMFhi 2. How Foundations are Supporting Grantee Staff Well-Being. By the Center for Effective Philanthropy https://lnkd.in/eCZdyB2g

At the Walter & Elise Haas Fund we seek to adopt and activate the same behaviors inside the organization that we see to activate outside of the organization. This blog shares our effort to bust through conventional silos and internal hierarchies by leaning into interdependence and shared responsibility. Many thanks to PEAK Grantmaking, Anna Hernandez, Marcel Marania, Natalia Vigil, and Suki O'Kane for creating this opportunity to share how the Fund is evolving. #PEAK2024 #BetterTogether #Philanthopy #OrganizationalDevelopment

📢 Attention Funders! 📢 It's time to address a crucial issue in the nonprofit sector: the difficult choice between balanced budgets and burnout. My latest blog post published by Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) delves into how funder demands are impacting nonprofit leaders and staff. Discover practical steps we can take to support nonprofit worker well-being, ensuring that our visions for change are realized without sacrificing those who make it happen. Let's foster a thriving nonprofit ecosystem together! #NonprofitWorkerWellbeing #philanthopy #nonprofits #burnout Read the State of Nonprofits 2024 report here: https://lnkd.in/eNtfGGhW Walter & Elise Haas Fund, ReWork the Bay, Fund the People, BoardSource, Rusty Stahl, Dawn Wolfe, Jennifer Roller, The Wellbeing Project, Elisha Smith Arrillaga, Ph.D., The James Irvine Foundation, Kristin Smithson https://lnkd.in/gt68VRVv

"This is more than going over an annual report. It’s active listening, humility, and respect, always asking: what role can we play so that nonprofits can win?" We're learning out loud in the hopes that the broader field can together build more trust-based practices, in right relationship with community, as we go forward. Today, Anna Hernandez, Strategist for Justice, Equity, and Learning, shares why the Walter & Elise Haas Fund has taken up a learning--not evaluation--orientation, and why that's inextricably linked to a justice and equity lens. Funders, how are you learning with grantee organizations? Grantees, how would you have funders learn with you? https://lnkd.in/gjUfGu9x