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Lauren serves as content editor for Candid insights. In this role, she authors and edits content leveraging Candid’s internal thought leadership and data. She also collaborates with external experts to provide valuable insights and actionable information on social sector-specific trends and issues.
Before joining Candid insights, Lauren was the content editor for Candid’s Philanthropy News Digest. With PND, she wrote about various topics relevant to the social sector through diverse editorial formats, including discussions on Black philanthropy and feminist philanthropy. Lauren holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in English and a minor in Education from Lincoln University (HBCU) and a Master of Science degree in Publishing from Pace University.
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Learn why supporting veterans and military families' unmet basic needs via more holistic funding and assistance programs is key to improving the health and livelihoods of U.S. veterans.
Delve into data on Black-founded nonprofits to discover how they're resiliently committed to driving impact in the face of funding disparities, limited growth opportunities, and the need for equitable support and investment.
Learn about the challenges Black women and gender-expansive nonprofit leaders face, including a lack of trust-and the sector-wide implications of these disconcerting dynamics.
2023 Roundup: HBCU funding increased; cautious optimism to stay course. Despite increased grants to HBCUs in 2020, cautiously optimistic staff called attention to the ongoing need for funding to address underinvestment in infrastructure, personnel, and scholarships, emphasizing the importance of unrestricted funding....
Reproductive health equity: Evolving funding needs post-Dobbs. Given the disproportionate impact on marginalized communities of the June 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the need for philanthropic funding to ensure equity in reproductive health care has surged....
Feminist philanthropy: Dismantling silos and raising long-term funding. Nonprofit leaders say funding for women and girls often falls short due to its overreliance on patriarchal power and a "white savior" mindset....
BIPOC environmental justice leaders call for more resources, agency. Since the burden of environmental disasters and climate change disproportionately affects low-income communities of color, nonprofit officials grapple with how philanthropy should work to dismantle structural racism in environmental causes....
2022 review: Funding for Black wealth generation targets investments. During 2022, the nonprofit and private sectors increasingly worked to dismantle longstanding racially based obstacles to mitigate the economic impact of systemic racism through the continuation of the Black Lives Matter movement and increases in corporate giving to bolster racial equity efforts....
Black philanthropy: Overcoming the wealth gap to build on a legacy of giving. Nonprofits are grappling with new questions about how to harness the scale of support for the Black community by those dedicated to race-conscious giving to create changes in Black philanthropy's visibility and proliferation....
Article Profiles
"I've been committed to girls of color since I was one." Dr. Monique Couvson, president and CEO of Grantmakers for Girls of Color (G4GC), has dedicated her life to young people, beginning with her involvement in organizing, mobilizing, teaching, and researching during her teenage years.
Jeannie Infante Sager, director of the Women's Philanthropy Institute (WPI) situated within the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, brings a unique perspective as a seasoned frontline fundraiser and nonprofit leader. "What drew me to the institute was this entrepreneurial approach to improving behaviors in the (philanthropic) field and growing women's philanthropy in a much more focused and intentional way," says Sager.
Interviews
Tiffany Benjamin, CEO, Humana Foundation: Centering equity in forming strong partnerships. PND asked Benjamin about the impact of environmental threats to communities of color, the Humana Foundation's approach to and broader outlook for disaster relief funding, and the ways in which it's contributing to advancing health equity....
Marc Philpart, Executive Director, California Black Freedom Fund: Support for Black power building. PND spoke with Philpart about the needs of Black-led organizations, how sustained multiyear funding plays a part, and what philanthropy needs to consider when working with the Black community....
Margaret Hempel, Executive Director, Collaborative for Gender + Reproductive Equity: Collaboration is the path to our future. PND asked Hempel about the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, CGRE's funding strategy, what philanthropy should do to assist women in the fight for the freedom of bodily autonomy, and the value of listening to frontline direct service nonprofits....
Susan Taylor Batten, President and CEO, ABFE: Reaching the goal of proportional funding for HBCUs. PND spoke with Batten about Candid and ABFE's report, Philanthropy and HBCUs: Foundation funding to historically Black colleges and universities, HBCUs' impact on generational wealth, how to combat HBCU underfunding, the benefits of partnering with ABFE, and how governmental changes could affect DEI programs at HBCUs....
Ben Jealous, Executive Director, Sierra Club: Drawing on our unique strengths to create champions for wild places. PND spoke with Jealous about lessons he's learned fighting against injustice and inequality; the importance of activism, especially at the ballot box; his preparation for his role as executive director of the Sierra Club; the intersection of poverty and environmental justice; and the role philanthropy plays in climate change mitigation....
Michelle Nunn, President and CEO, CARE USA: 77 years of using history, experience, and scale to respond to global humanitarian crises.
Monique Couvson, President and CEO, Grantmakers for Girls of Color. PND spoke with Couvson about the goals of the Future Economy Lab initiative; the obstacles that constrain giving for Black girls, femmes, and gender-expansive youth of color; the strategies that would increase giving; how Black philanthropy plays a part; and how Black girls and women can become more centered in conversations that discuss their unmet needs and barriers to success....
Garnesha Ezediaro, Greenwood Initiative Lead, Bloomberg Philanthropies: Addressing racism and systemic underinvestment to build a new economic reality. PND asked Ezediaro about the long-lasting effects racism and violence have had on the Black community's ability to achieve generational wealth and its impact on Black philanthropy, how Bloomberg Philanthropies' Greenwood Initiative seeks to address racial wealth inequities, the initiative's mission of reducing wealth disparities in Black...
Jeannie Infante Sager and Jacqueline Ackerman, Director and Associate Director, Women's Philanthropy Institute: Increasing visibility to boost giving. Infante Sager and Ackerman discussed their work to increase the visibility of women's philanthropy, especially that of Black women; research findings about women's motivations for giving and their implications; trends in giving led by high-profile women philanthropists; and prospects for "rage giving" and "feminist philanthropy....
Peggy Shepard, Co-founder and Executive Director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice: Confronting the impact of environmental racism. PND asked Shepard about the importance of organizing to build healthy communities, sustainable policies that would bring about change, the root causes of environmental racism, the benefits of science and community partnership, the legislative response to environmental justice, and the need for climate migrants from South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa to...
Isabelle Leighton, Interim Executive Director, Donors of Color Network: Shifting the center of gravity toward racial and economic justice. PND asked Leighton about barriers to donors of color achieving equitable attention and consideration, the role race and racism play in the problems that philanthropists are working to solve, how the philanthropic sector could be more inclusive, philanthropy's response to climate justice, and how best to demystify and educate the sector on the issues that...
Katy Knight, Executive Director and President, Siegel Family Endowment: Putting equity at the heart of what we are doing. PND asked Knight about philanthropy's influence on infrastructure, the sector's approach to equity, Big Tech's impact and philanthropy's technological future outlook, the politicization of science, and how philanthropy could fill gaps and drive change in education and workforce development....
Margaret Goldberg, President and CEO, Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation: Spinal cord injury research at a hopeful and critical juncture. PND asked Goldberg about her plans to launch a modern approach to the foundation's scientific endeavors, the development and delivery of treatments that move the field closer to cures for spinal cord injury, new partnerships, the current status of stem cell research and other therapies, and leading the National Paralysis Resource Center....
Eric Pannese, Senior Vice President of Product Management and Design, Classy. PND asked Pannese about the benefits of nonprofits prioritizing digital practices and user experience, the shift toward mobile giving, the impact of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency giving, and the future of AI use in the nonprofit sector....
Allison Lutnick, Director of Disaster Relief Operations, Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund: American resilience remains unmatched. PND asked Lutnick about the lessons of 9/11, the fund's evolution over the last two decades, its annual Charity Day event, and corporate partnerships....
Priti Krishtel, Co-Founder, I-MAK. PND asked Krishtel about inequity across the globe as it relates to COVID-19 vaccines, challenges in the United States of ensuring an equitable medicines system, the drug pricing crisis, and what funders can do to bring about change....
Rashid Shabazz, Executive Director, Critical Minded. PND asked Shabazz about how philanthropy could more systematically address social inequities in arts funding practices, the steps museums and galleries should take to advance equity, and how Critical Minded is working to narrow gaps in the representation of cultural critics of color in art spaces....
Linda Goler Blount, President and CEO, Black Women's Health Imperative. PND asked Goler Blount about the ways in which Black women have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, the Covid-19 Vaccine Awareness & Equity Task Force, and how to address the racial disparity in maternal mortality rates....
Book Reviews
Strong Girls, Strong World: A Practical Guide to Helping Them Soar and Creating a Better Future for Us All. The author sets out not only to share the stories of women facing systemic inequalities and lack of resources but also to make it easy for readers to take action to make a meaningful difference for women and girls worldwide....
Building A Pro-Black World: Moving Beyond DE&I Work and Creating Spaces for Black People to Thrive. The book is not just a primer on transforming the nonprofit workplace into places of safety and refuge for Black people but a guidebook on challenging anti-Blackness in many areas of everyday life, writes Brathwaite, content editor at PND....
The Everyday Feminist: The Key to Sustainable Social Impact - Driving Movements We Need Now More than Ever. In her book, the president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women celebrates the work everyday feminist activists do and the movements they create-those who are often from marginalized communities but center their communities in their work.....
Feminist Giving: Creating New Frontiers in Social Change. When Marek talks of feminism, it's not just in the context of how women give or why, but it's also about feminism's potential to improve the planet as a whole, writes PND content editor Lauren Brathwaite....
How to Prevent the Next Pandemic. The book is a good conversation starter about what we could be doing in a perfect world, and what resources, funding, and other support would be essential, writes PND content editor Lauren Brathwaite, but the healthcare systems in the U.S.
The Smart Nonprofit: Staying Human-Centered in an Automated World. The authors illuminate how smart nonprofits are capitalizing on and leaning into the impact of "smart tech" to save time, support wiser and better leadership, and transform into human-centered, well-prepared, knowledgeable, and reflective organizations, writes PND's Lauren Brathwaite....
The Deeper the Roots: A Memoir of Hope and Home. Tubbs' memoir is timely and significant to the conversations surrounding systemic racism and poverty, writes Lauren Brathwaite, a story interwoven with heartache and joy and told with honesty, humility, grace, and passion....
Appearances
Feminist Philanthropy: Building Movements for Impact Together, we learned how feminist philanthropy and movement building are the next steps in making a difference for women’s empowerment around the world. Danielle Berfond, The Bridgespan Group Lauren Brathwaite, Philanthropy News Digest PeiYao Chen, Global Fund for Women