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"The value of the Harmony Initiative is beyond words. Our facilitators expertly created a space that allowed us to bring our best selves, go deep and be vulnerable together while holding each other accountable." - Sara Dronkers, Director of Grantmaking and Nonprofit Resources, Humboldt Area Foundation

Harmony Initiative

A Leadership Program for Grantmakers & Philanthropy Professionals to Advance a Thriving & Just World

Since 2015, almost 200 grantmakers from over 100 institutions have participated in the Harmony Initiative!

Harmony equips participants with the community, skills, and resources to transform philanthropy into a force for equity and social justice. Inherent to this is building participant capacity to become funder organizers who can help advance a Just Transition for the field.

Harmony’s curriculum is grounded in Resonance, the framework we use for philanthropic transformation. Throughout the program, participants examine transformation on three levels:

  • Personal: To lead effectively, Harmony engages participants in the “inner work” of understanding their personal beliefs, values, and purpose. Through this engagement, participants also consider power–their relationship to it, how it shapes their work, and how they want to use it; vision- how they define it and how it fuels them; resilience – how to cultivate it and thrive; and much more.
  • Interpersonal: Building on the personal, participants identify opportunities to seed transformation in their teams, organizations, and their relationships with communities. Harmony introduces them to strategies and resources for power mapping, conflict literacy, negotiation, and culture transformation.
  • Collective: Lastly, the cohort looks at philanthropy as a field and system. Together, participants reflect on the history of philanthropy and its present day implications; maps a new vision for the field in which communities lead and thrive; and co-create frameworks to incrementally shift the field from within. As part of this, participants learn about movement building, funder organizing, and systems change.

Artwork by Taslim van Hattum. This illustration includes depictions of the Harmony 8 Cohort and the kinds of conversations they are having in regards to building the future of philanthropy.

"The Harmony Initiative allows us to translate our hopes and intentions into a reality that is more cogent and effective for the field and for movements advancing systemic social change." - David Moy, Senior Program Officer, The Hyams Foundation
Current and Past Harmony Initiative Participant Cohorts

Current and past program participants work at grantmaking institutions including The Libra Foundation, the San Francisco Foundation, Borealis Philanthropy, and many others. Each year’s cohort has given us the opportunity to support leaders holding such positions across the sector: program officers and associates; fellows; executive directors; and grants managers and associates.

We have an archive of annual alumni cohort lists going back to 2015, and we’re happy share them by request. Just send an email to leadershipprograms (at) justicefunders (dot) org.

"We know that the status quo of doing philanthropy as usual will not move the needle for the kinds of impact and change we want to see for our communities. With a brave learning community, we move along a collective journey of understanding how to navigate and leverage our roles in institutions and the larger philanthropic sector to push for more equitable practices in grantmaking." - JC De Vera, Fellow, The San Francisco Foundation