NYC Mayor Announces $115M Settlement for Delivery Workers

Fundamental Voices has just wrapped up its first year! Our five-year programme, funded by The National Lottery Community Fund and delivered with Wirral Council and Sefton Council, explores how co-production can help children, young people and families shape the public services designed for them. Programme Lead Annie Hinton has shared what we've learned so far: our best work is done in collaboration, it’s okay to start with broad strokes before adding in the details, and strong relationships earn the trust that long-term change depends on. Read the full reflection here 👇 https://lnkd.in/e7j9hE7d

Another session we're keeping an eye on at #NICON26 is ‘Together for Families – Good Intentions Are Not Good Enough!’ Together for Families is a landmark £60 million programme, jointly funded by the Public Sector Transformation Fund and the National Lottery Community Fund, designed to transform how families are supported, from early practical help through to more intensive services, with the aim of reducing the number of children in care or at risk of being taken into care. It's a conversation that speaks directly to social work practice in Northern Ireland, and to the skilled, relationship-based work our social workers do every day with children and families. We'll be following the discussion with interest.

Homewise deserves far more scrutiny than it typically receives. An organization so deeply connected to public funding and affordable housing policy should be held to the highest standards of transparency and ethical conduct. Suing the City of Santa Fe over a public funding process raises legitimate questions about whether Homewise Inc. is protecting its mission or protecting its institutional interests. Public dollars should never come with an expectation of entitlement, and no nonprofit should be treated as beyond criticism simply because it operates under the banner of affordable housing. #santafe #newmexico

I don't go into communities to give them another plan. Plans have their place. Good ones absolutely matter. But a plan only covers so much ground, and eventually it runs out. What I actually try to do is give community leaders a better decision making lens. Because a community has thousands of decisions to make every year. The municipal budget. Capital improvements. Staff time. Nonprofit mission statements. Volunteer projects. Zoning decisions. Code enforcement. All of it. No plan covers all of that. But a shared lens can. The question I want every leader asking before every decision is simple: will this make residents proud of their town? Will this make the people who live here healthier and happier? That's the lens. When an entire community, municipal government, nonprofits, local businesses, volunteers, starts running every decision through that filter, real change becomes inevitable. Not because of one big project or one great plan, but because hundreds of small decisions are all pointed in the same direction. That's where the power lies. Not just in the plan. In the decisions we make every single day.

A question for businesses, funders and people working in our communities. Where are people falling through the gap? Not necessarily people already in crisis. The people before that. Those becoming isolated. People who have lost confidence after redundancy, caring responsibilities or time away from work. Someone with a business idea but no access to the networks or support that could help them explore it. People who need some direction but don’t meet a threshold. Young people unsure where they fit. Adults quietly carrying more and more without anybody noticing. We’re asking because Founding Futures shouldn’t decide what communities need without listening to the people already in them. Our approach is built around accessible, preventative, human support. But what that looks like next should also be informed by what people are actually seeing. So whether you work in a business, school, community organisation, charity, public service or you simply know your own community well: What gap are you seeing that isn’t being filled? We’d really like to hear. Not every answer will become a Founding Futures programme. But listening properly is part of knowing where we can genuinely be useful. And where somebody else may be better placed to help. That is part of what “we build with people, not simply for them” needs to look like in practice.

In yesterday’s Indianapolis Business Journal, CICF CEO Jennifer Bartenbach asks how we know if our communities are getting stronger. Government, business, nonprofits and philanthropy can each hit their own goals and still miss what is happening in people’s daily lives. Jennifer makes the case for a shared, data-driven way to track progress on things like housing, childcare, education, health and workforce participation, using the strong data our region already has. CICF is exploring what that could look like with community foundations in all nine central Indiana counties. Read the column on page 13A of yesterday's IBJ, or in this link: https://lnkd.in/giVyDPr2

Whether you are staff, volunteer, or a board member, this session will offer insights on how to strengthen your nonprofit. I’m so excited to present alongside my colleague Vanessa - and give you all the first glimpse into what we are building :) We made sure the cost could be easily covered by a PD budget :)

A community can have plenty of data and still struggle to answer a basic question: What should we focus on next? I’m hosting The State of Us with Sonya Wytinck this Wednesday. We’ll look at how to bring residents’ perspectives together with public data to identify strengths, understand needs, and set priorities. We’ll also show how AI can take on some of the heavy lifting in strategic planning: pulling together findings, identifying promising strategies, and helping turn those insights into a draft plan. Leaders still make the choices, but getting from data to a useful plan can be much easier. If you’re working on a needs assessment or strategic plan or considering one, I hope you’ll join us. September 30 at 11 a.m. Mountain / 1 p.m. Eastern. Registration is in Polco’s post.

Housing needs are changing across the Edmonton Metropolitan Region. Understanding these changes is essential to building communities where people can thrive. Our Managing Partners contributed to the Regional Housing Needs Assessment: Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which brings together data and community insights to provide a clearer picture of current and projected housing needs across the region. For nonprofit practitioners, this assessment offers valuable context for understanding the housing challenges people face and considering how programs, services, and advocacy can better respond to evolving community needs. Explore the assessment here: https://lnkd.in/gbBdU8tU

We’re investing in a safer, stronger, more connected community. The City of Spruce Grove has been allocated more than $511,000 in federal funding over three years to support the Community Outreach team, helping connect vulnerable residents with resources, support services and prevention programs. Through this funding, we will continue and enhance this important social support which provides resource navigation and referrals to individuals who are unsheltered and/or experiencing multiple barriers to wellbeing. As the initiative progresses, there will also be an increased focus on supporting youth at risk of gang involvement through prevention and community-based intervention. To learn more about this and other provincial and federal grants we’re investing to build our community, visit https://lnkd.in/gxNDZHz5.