How This Omaha Foundation Embraced Community-Led, Participatory Grantmaking

When Anne Meysenburg, director of community investment at Omaha Community Foundation (OCF) first read the proposal from the nonprofit Descendants of DeWitty back in 2016, she assumed the committee members of the foundation’s African American Unity Fund would reject it.

The nonprofit, which celebrates the largest 19th-century Black homestead in Nebraska, was seeking funding to educate school children about Black pioneers. The grant application the group submitted lacked details. “I was like, ‘Oh, there’s no way this is going to be funded,’” Meysenburg said.

However, committee members, Black Omahans from the community, knew about the nonprofit and about the dominant narrative of settlement that ignored Black people’s role in the founding of the American West. “For them, it was a clear investment in showing that not all pioneers were white. There are Black kids here who don’t know that, and don’t see themselves in the stories of Nebraska being settled,” said Meysenburg. “They could see the impact that I didn’t see. It made me extremely humble in those rooms from then on.”

This story illustrates one of the key strengths of community-led, participatory grantmaking — people within the community know the issues and organizations. They bring their lived experience and first-hand knowledge to the discussion, helping route money to groups that might otherwise be overlooked. In this case, the committee invested in the Descendants of DeWitty, which went on to slowly grow (and organized an exhibition on Black settlers at the Durham Museum during Black History Month in 2023).

We’ve long been fans of community-led, participatory grantmaking here at IP. It is not only potentially better at finding solutions than top-down, “ivory tower” funding, but it also helps democratize philanthropy by giving community members a real say in where investments go. Stepping into the role of benefactor can be an empowering intervention itself. Jocelynne Rainey, president and CEO of the Brooklyn Community Foundation, which has a high-touch form of participatory grantmaking, told me last year, “The feeling of being able to support work you care about and people you care about is a feeling everyone should have. They feel like a giver.” The practice can also mitigate some of the growing backlash against philanthropy.

But participatory grantmaking is not without challenges. It’s resource-intensive and requires learning on the part of program officers and community members. Still, since creating the African American Unity Fund in 2008 as an outgrowth of a donor account, the Omaha Community Foundation has continued to invest time and money in this approach, creating four more community interest funds: the Futuro Latino Fund in 2009, the LGBTQIA2S+ Equality Fund, the Omaha Neighborhood Grants Program, and its newest one, the Refugee Community Grant Fund. Its experience offers insight into how participatory philanthropy can work and grow.

What giving looks like in Omaha

Since its founding in 1982, OCF has given away about $2 billion across all its portfolios. With assets of just over $1.6 billion, it is one of the top 20 community foundations by size in the nation, and this in a metro area of less than 1 million people, making it only the 56th-largest metro area. Most of its giving today is through its 2,000 or so donor-advised funds of $25,000 or more, its smaller “charitable checkbook” funds, and other money earmarked for particular issues or recipients as part of people’s estate planning.

While a relatively small city, Omaha has a strong philanthropic presence. It’s home, after all, to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, a major source of wealth in the area. It has an active community of donors, said Megan Stubenhofer-Barrett, OCF’s director of marketing and communications. “People are committed to giving back.”

The now-five community funds grew organically from the needs of the community. The foundation has given out nearly $7 million through these funds over the past 15 years. There is no endowment for them, and the foundation fundraises their grantmaking budgets every year. The CIF work falls within the foundation’s community investment practice and is part of its overall strategic plan. Through its five Community Interest Funds, the foundation made 92 grants in 2023, giving a total of $845,000. Current major donors to the funds include Sherwood Foundation, William & Ruth Scott Family Foundation, Peter Kiewit Foundation, Lozier Foundation, Mutual of Omaha, Conagra Brands Foundation, Google Fiber, Kiewit Company, Union Pacific, Paul & Annette Smith, and Todd & Betiana Simon.

Committees of the people, for the people

Each of the five committees overseeing a community interest fund is composed of residents who come from or identify with the population being served. Committees range in size from five to 15 people, depending on the preference of the group and the pool of applicants. The committee selection began in a similar manner as a traditional board recruitment process, with existing committee members suggesting others. But it has since evolved into an open application process, which allows the foundation to cast a wider net in its search for participants. Committee members can serve for three years, with the chair remaining for a fourth year.

Committee members get training and coaching in equity-based, trust-based philanthropic values, power sharing, identifying their own values and criteria for decision-making, and more. They also receive a small stipend for their service. “We did this to recognize that this process can be time consuming and that the lived experience of our committee members has value to the community and to OCF,” said Meysenburg.

Kimberly Barnes came to the African American Unity Fund committee through the open application process. This is her third year on the committee, and she also sits on the CIF evaluation advisory committee. In her day job, she serves as the executive director of Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children (CASA) for Douglas County. Barnes was familiar with the world of philanthropy because of her career in nonprofits, but this is her first experience on the other side of the giving equation.

“That is much more delightful than always having to ask. Seeing the grassroots organizations that have the same aspirations, and being part of that initiation of funding gives me a lot of joy,” she said.

The committees review proposals and decide which projects to fund. The foundation staff provides the training and the funds, but does not have oversight over the committee’s decisions. “I liken it to bumper bowling in that we make sure that the bowling ball stays in the lane, but the committee gets to decide what that looks like from the whole-game perspective,” said Meysenburg. “We create the container, but ultimately, the committees get to decide their focus areas and criteria for decision-making.”

Grantees tend to be small groups with operating budgets of less than $500,000. They may or may not have full-time staff — or grant writers. The 2023 grants from the African American Unity Fund include $10,050 to All In The Family Mentoring & Support Services, $22,150 for 3rd Annual Juneteenth Joy Fest, and $10,000 to Well-Read Women of Omaha, as well as 16 other groups. Futuro Latino Fund’s 12 grantees include $25,000 to Latino Economic Development Council, $20,000 to LIVE Leadership Camp and $15,000 for scholarships to Matters On Tomorrow. The 22 grantees of the Refugee Community Grant Fund include $5,000 to All People’s Pantry: A Culturally Appropriate Food Pantry, $2,500 for the American Red Cross Home Fire Campaign, $12,000 to DIBS for Kids for English learner books, and $7,800 to Heartland Bike Share for bike share passes for refugees.

Barnes has helped steer money to many proposals over her three-year tenure, but she said one that really stood out was the grant request from Well-Read Women of Omaha, which supports literacy and empowerment of Black women and children in Omaha. As a literature major myself, I certainly value books. But Barnes brought a community-specific lens to the conversation about funding literacy.

“Frederick Douglas said, ‘If you want to hide something from a Negro, put it in a book,’” she said. “That could be read two ways. If you are the oppressor, you can compound the oppression of being poorly fed and poorly read. But it’s also telling Black people that to leverage yourself, you’re going to have to read. When I read their proposal, I was like, ‘This makes sense.’ If they are pushing literacy, they are telling you that reading is important, because that’s where you’ll find information of value, information that will propel you.”

Strengthening trust and connection between donors and communities

Even with community members making funding decisions, a foundation can still feel removed from the day-to-day challenges of residents it serves. In Omaha, the communities served by the CIF portfolio tend to be close knit and to look for resources from within. It can be hard to build trust, especially in an era when people are increasingly critiquing philanthropy as yet another way that rich people have all the fun — and set agendas within a community.

As Brooklyn Community Foundation’s Rainey recently told the New York Times, that foundation just changed its name to Brooklyn.org, partly because the URL was available, but partly as a way of “removing that word ‘foundation,’ because of what people believe a foundation is.” As in, exclusive and remote.

One way the Omaha Community Foundation is building more trust, Meysenburg said, is by having staff members show up in community where people are, and listen to the nonprofits. “As much as we try to reiterate to the communities being served that the committees make the decisions, the nonprofits want a relationship with the community foundation. So we try to balance that.” This desire to know foundation staff points to one limitation of community-led committees; if they are the only touchpoint, a gulf remains between the foundation and the wider community.

Another issue in Omaha is the number of non-English speakers in some of these communities. To date, the foundation has required that committee members speak English, but it has decided to drop that requirement in the future and is working on offering simultaneous translation next year. “With the Latino fund, most of those folks speak English. With the refugee committee, it could be eight different languages. We are a high-resettlement community, so we have a lot of folks from different countries and backgrounds,” said Meysenburg.

Another benefit of the foundation’s CIF committees is that their work helps educate donors about lesser-known groups operating in their city. The committees connect foundation staff to these groups, and they in turn talk them up to donors. Grantees are also included in the annual impact report, which donors receive. This has led to people investing in some small organizations they may not have previously known existed.

As the impact report puts it, “By developing a deep knowledge of local needs and the nonprofit organizations that are working on solutions, the team at OCF has established itself as a valued resource and a catalyst for good.”

The next goal for the CFI portfolio? Not having to scramble for funding each year. “My dream is stability in funding — whether that’s having endowed funds or long-term, multi-year investments,” said Meysenburg.

Barnes said that she really appreciates the effort the Omaha Community Foundation makes to continually support, improve and market the community funds. “They know how valuable it is and are intentional about having those in the community serve in that capacity. Their marketing means the conversation is happening now in these communities, whereas before, it wasn’t.”

Barnes said she hopes to stay involved after her turn on the committee ends. “As a Black woman executive director, I know how important philanthropy is,” she said. “I want to continue to push the narrative that it is OK to fund Black and brown initiatives and community-led programs. We may do things differently because that is our lived experience. I want to push so they understand, although we don’t look like the typical lead of organizations, we have a voice, it’s valid, and we need funding just like everyone else does. I just want to continue tackling this philanthropy world that isn’t always as generous to the Black and brown community.”

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