Community Power Initiative (CPI) - General Operating Grants

Community Power Initiative (CPI) - General Operating Grants is sponsored by Marin Community Foundation. Provides multi-year, general operating support to nonprofits serving Marin County residents, aiming to reduce administrative burden and increase flexibility.

MCF's Community Power Initiative | Marin Community Foundation Skip to content Community Power Nonprofit organizations in Marin represent a 24/7, boots-on-the-ground presence in the county. Day in and day out, they provide crucial services to those in need. They are the groups that embody and represent the power of community and the ability of community itself to care for, uplift and transform.

Too often, though, philanthropic support comes with more strings than flexibility, more reporting requirements than partnership, and as many months of application writing as months of support. Nonprofit leaders are left chasing dollars instead of serving their communities and fighting for equity. Power ends up residing with grantmakers instead of communities.

We believe the time has come to put more power in the hands of those who are most directly engaged in the work. To support this commitment, we launched the Community Power Initiative — a three-year, $30 million program to explore a new model for how MCF can support nonprofits.

Through multiyear, general operating grants, our goal is to reduce administrative burden, increase flexibility, build and sustain the health and vitality of organizations, recognize innovative ones, and ultimately empower leading organizations throughout Marin County to flourish and focus on the critical work at hand.

To build on this work, MCF also launched the Marin Accelerator, a companion initiative that helps grassroots organizations strengthen their capacity, deepen collaboration and grow their long-term impact. Learn About the Accelerator Through an open request for proposals process, we sought to support organizations and collaboratives that work with and support Marin’s most marginalized communities.

While the support reaches countywide, it gives special attention to the areas that continue to be geographically, socioeconomically and racially segregated: the Canal in San Rafael, Marin City, West Marin and pockets of Novato. Seventy-three individual organizations and nine collaboratives will form the Community Power Initiative portfolio for the next three years. See the list of organizations by clicking the link below.

They represent larger, long-established nonprofits; small, newly founded organizations; and everything in between. They span dozens of issue areas and come from every corner of the county.

What unites them is a commitment to serving those in our community who are facing the most profound challenges and doing so in a way that puts equity at the center of their missions The process allowed us to learn so much about the role we can play in our community, the health of the county, the biggest issues facing nonprofits and how we can continue to do better.

See our full collection of resources for legal, financial, fundraising, cybersecurity. Trust-based philanthropy resources Interested in learning more? Selected reports and research papers are below.

The Impact of Trust-Based Philanthropy By the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project The Future of Philanthropy Is By Shaady Salehi for the Standford Social Innovation Review The Strategic Value of Trust-Based Philanthropy By Stacey Faella & Ryan Roberson for the Standford Social Innovation Review