The New World Foundation Advantage

Our work is more effective when we join together with partner foundations and donors who share the same priorities. As a public charity, NWF is a national consortium of funders aiming to influence public policy with a strong emphasis on local, state and national change. Individuals, families and foundations benefit from our expert program officers and diverse board who use their on-the-ground relationships and deep issue experience to identify key opportunities in planning and executing a program of giving. We are well positioned to create and develop customized philanthropic strategies, investment plans, and overall foundation management. NWF also joins with other funders in the following ways:

Donor-Advised Funds

Donor-advised funds enable donors to make long-term commitments to specific programmatic goals and represent an important resource that calls for both good stewardship and careful strategic planning. NWF staff meets with donors regularly to clarify their priorities and refine grant recommendations accordingly. NWF manages all government paperwork and private accounting recordkeeping for the fund, while offering below market administrative costs to the donor.

New Fund Development

When new donors or small foundations are in start-up phase or re-thinking their agendas, NWF staff will work with individuals, families and boards to evaluate past performance, assess current goals, and execute new funding opportunities, such as:

  • Labor and Community
  • Quality Jobs
  • Energy

Funder Education: Seminars & Workshops

NWF is committed to funder education and we organize frequent seminars and workshops on topics like education and community development, political participation and state-based power building, the changing economy and the role of government, global environmental justice, progressive media strategies, and nonprofit leadership development. These programs bring together outside experts, NWF staff and like-minded donors for mutually beneficial explorations of politics and strategy. These seminar series offer a productive forum for diverse stakeholders to join around a funding area, and the funder education seminar and workshops often lead to substantial publications, collaborative funds, and long-term donor relationships that maximize social change impact. Most recently, we’ve organized workshops and convenings around issues of:

  • Climate
  • Local Economic Development
  • Food Justice
  • Immigration

Impact Partnerships

Using our own resources in concert with others, NWF is building a resilient community of philanthropists that can strengthen progressive infrastructure and effect lasting social change. NWF promotes donor partnerships for greater collective impact involving both learning and giving together. Our grantmaking programs have become collaborative funds, and we engage with long-established foundations and new donors to build and advance issue initiatives and multi-issue organizational capacity that rebuilds and sustains a robust progressive policy and action agenda.

Fiscal Sponsorship

On-the-ground, grassroots community groups have regularly served as a platform for the creation of innovative projects and organizations that test new approaches to social change. Often lead by energetic and committed leadership, these emerging projects are looking for cost-effective ways to implement their work without establishing a new, separate nonprofit organization. As an endowed public charity, the New World Foundation is in a position to deploy its corpus in ways that promote sustainability with both new projects and the work. Our advantage is:

  • A national board of community practitioners
  • Deploying our corpus to keep fees low
  • Advance cash before funding commitments are received in order to maintain payroll continuity
  • Shared fundraising responsibility
  • Utilizing both c3 and c4 opportunities to advance the work