Shared Gifting Skagit County, WA

Jun 24, 2013 8:10 AM ET

Reimagine Money Blog

RSF is excited to announce the participants of the next Shared Gifting circle focused on sustainable food and agriculture organizations in Skagit County. The participants, listed below, were nominated by RSF’s community of investors, donors, borrowers, and grantees. In addition, we worked with RSF borrower Viva Farms, to identify key non-profit organizations working the Skagit region.

Shared Gifting is a new model of grantmaking that allows grantees to determine how grant funds should be distributed. This model shifts the power dynamic inherent in traditional philanthropy by giving the grantees the decision making authority of the funds. The process creates opportunities for grantees to collaborate as well as leverages their knowledge of the needs in the community.

Representatives from these groups will gather together in Skagit County in the second half of 2013 to share proposals with each other and determine how to distribute grant funds for support of each other’s work.

This process has already fostered collaborations in the region as two of the non-profits teamed up to create a collaborative project supporting all of the Farmer’s Markets in Skagit. This collaboration is an example of how the grantmaking process can build collaboration, rather than competition, amongst grantee organizations.

The participants are:

Catholic Housing Services

Community Action of Skagit County

Community to Community Development

Latino Business Retention and Expansion Program

Skagit Valley Farmers Market Coalition

Northwest Agriculture Business Center

Skagitonians to Preserve Farmland

Viva Farms