Mary’s Pence hosted our annual Grantee Gathering October 20-23 in Farmington, Minnesota at the Mount Olivet Conference and Retreat Center. At the event grantees had the opportunity to network, build skills, learn from each other, share knowledge, rest and reflect.
Grantees kicked off our new Public Health Cohort at Katherine Wotjan’s house. The cohort is facilitated by St. Kate’s Masters of Public Health candidate Tatianna Lopez.
“[The Grantee Gathering] gives the opportunity to allow other nonprofit leaders not to feel alone. A lot of organizations feel like other organizations just don’t get what they’re doing. We all have uniquenesses about our nonprofit organizations, but when you come together like this, this is the actual definition of a community working together and striving together.” – Victoria Whiteley, Family Advocate/ Community Engagement, Heart of Courage.
Mary’s Pence Grants Manager, Erin Williams Rodriguez, welcomed grantees to the opening session. During the session, Kathy Hanson of Backpocket Strategy spoke about staying healthy while managing multiple demands – essential for leaders of small nonprofits.
Then past grantee Neda Renee Kellogg, founder of Project Diva and Successful Connections LLC, talked about deciding to choose joy, a resilience-building mindset (picture of Neda with grantees above).
Emma Davidson-Tribbs, co-founder of National Women’s Defense League and current grantee, gave a presentation on Policy and Advocacy Tips and Tricks for a 501c3.
Beth Gombos, Executive Director of THISTL and current grantee, facilitated a discussion on Community Organizing. Beth reflected on being a Grantee speaker:
“Presenting today about community organizing to this group of powerful women and transgender and non binary people was healing for me to share my experience and my journey. I could tell that I connected with people. Someone came up to me afterwards and they looked me in the eyes and I could tell that they felt seen and they were really grateful for me sharing what I did.” – Beth Gombos, Executive Director, THISTL
Grantees reflected on how Mary’s Pence is different:
“Mary’s Pence is the most proactive foundation I have ever worked with since being with NEJA since 1998.” – Gail Williamson, Director, National Equal Justice Association
“Being here with other grassroots leaders to me has really shown me that Mary’s Pence is invested in the work that they do. I think that having a funder bring all of the grantees together truly encompasses the meaning of the mission of their work. A lot of funders just give some money and they want to report at the end of the year, but bring all the grantees together so that we can connect to each other and share our similar values and the similar work that we do, it really creates a sense of accomplishment and solutions for challenges.” – Beth Gombos, Executive Director, THISTL