Collective Action
Skills-Based Volunteering | Collective Giving | Education
At Full Circle Fund, we have been asking ourselves and our community what is needed to build a more just, equitable, and sustainable Bay Area. We’ve heard many great perspectives, and the one we are thrilled to focus on is taking collective action.
You may have heard of beach clean ups or assembling emergency kits. These are great ways to provide hands on help to our communities. Yet, at Full Circle Fund, our niche is different. We deploy strategic skills-based volunteering, collective giving, and education to bring together our community of skilled professionals, change-makers, nonprofits, and companies to work in partnership towards change in the Bay.
Let’s break down these approaches:
Skills-Based Volunteering: In skills-based volunteering people contribute their professional expertise to address specific challenges faced by nonprofits and communities. In contrast with traditional volunteering, which often involves generic tasks, skills-based volunteering leverages the unique talents and capabilities of individuals to create meaningful impact. We bring together highly-skilled professionals from diverse fields, such as marketing, finance, technology, education and healthcare, to offer their specialized skills to address complex problems and enhance organizational capacity.
Our take: At Full Circle Fund, we are a nonprofit, and we believe our nonprofit partners and the communities they work within are the experts when it comes to tackling different challenges. We know that one of the key strengths of skills-based volunteering is that it builds the capacity of our expert partners! This work allows them to operate more efficiently and strategically — thereby maximizing their mission & impact.
We are also fans of skills-based volunteering because it actually promotes a sense of purpose among individuals, tapping into their intrinsic desire to make a meaningful difference. So, our members leave not only having supported the work of a fantastic local nonprofit, but oftentimes they’ve built relationships with the organization and other Full Circle Fund members for years to come.
Our design: We’ve been doing this for over 20 years in the Bay, and our model is tested and true. One of our secrets is that we build teams of pro-bono, highly skilled volunteers who go through workshops such as (Kick-Off, Wrap-Up, Power & Privilege and Systems Lens) to help them arrive into relationship with our nonprofit partners ready to prioritize the nonprofit’s needs and leadership while building affirming, human-centered relationship.
This is part of why it works! The other part is the creative, dynamic, generous individuals who elect to become part of experiences like Full Circle Fund membership.
About Collective Giving: Collective giving in the U.S. has deep roots, including roots in immigrant, working-class, and communities of color. Collective Giving involves pooling resources—financial, intellectual, or otherwise—by a group of individuals or organizations to address social issues collaboratively. This approach recognizes that collective action can yield more significant results than isolated efforts.
Basically, we can do more together than we can do alone! Often, this realization born of creative necessity. Yet, it’s also more fun when we come together, and break isolation, thereby building social cohesion. Collective giving is about strengthening many strands of community.
Collective giving — in forms such as community foundations, giving circles, and crowdfunding platforms — helps draw together resources to support initiatives that align with shared values and goals. (Endgame: each person giving a little can actually yield a lot!)
Another great advantage of collective giving is its democratizing effect on philanthropy. Our friends over at Philanthropy Together (https://philanthropytogether.org) have been doing a great job of sharing the good news about collective giving and lifting this up.
At Full Circle Fund, we are part of this global Collective Giving movement. We are dedicated to championing education that disrupts traditional philanthropic practices to center equity and community.
Collective Giving can actually bring a broader range of individuals to participate in philanthropic activities, regardless of their individual financial capacity. Everyone can get involved and feel what it is like to be part of something bigger and making practical change in our communities.
At Full Circle Fund, by combining resources, our members become donors who can amplify impact, and also focus on supporting projects that might otherwise lack the visibility or funding required to make a substantial difference. This kind of collective giving ethos, its generosity and strategy, is why we hold a membership model at Full Circle Fund.
And, even as we have growing in terms of array of programs we offer, we are prioritizing ways for our members to become actively be involved in the decision-making process, selecting projects and causes that resonate with shared values. This collaborative approach is great for community-building AND it also ensures that diverse perspectives are considered in the allocation of resources. To learn more, please check out our Membership page to get involved! (Our Leadership, and Equity-Focus pages are coming soon!)
This Giving Tuesday we are reminded that generosity is at the core of what we do at Full Circle Fund. For the last 20+ years our members have been coming together to think, learn and work hand-in-hand with nonprofits to affect change where it matters most. We believe that the transformative powers of skills-based volunteering and collective giving are essential for building resilient and empowered communities. We hope that you will be inspired to give back to your community by continuing to invest your time and financial gifts with us at Full Circle Fund.
Bet part of building the future of skills-based volunteerism and collective giving in the Bay Area!