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By Stephen Sherman

We’ve recently expanded our Lending Library to include the titles below and much more. SECF members have exclusive access to our virtual collection offering e-books and audiobooks on best practices in philanthropy, advancing equity, and social sector leadership. Visit our website to get started today! 

Read Up On Our Annual Meeting Speakers

Get ready for the SECF 52^nd Annual Meeting with these titles by our opening and closing keynote speakers, Wes Moore and Heather McGhee. 

The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore

In December 2000, the Baltimore Sun ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local student who had just received a Rhodes Scholarship. The same paper also ran a series of articles about four young men who had allegedly killed a police officer in a spectacularly botched armed robbery. The police were still hunting for two of the suspects who had gone on the lam, a pair of brothers. One was named Wes Moore. Wes just couldn’t shake off the unsettling coincidence, or the inkling that the two shared much more than space in the same newspaper. After following the story of the robbery, the manhunt, and the trial to its conclusion, he wrote a letter to the other Wes, now a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His letter tentatively asked the questions that had been haunting him: Who are you? How did this happen?

The Work: Searching for a Life that Matters by Wes Moore

The Work is the story of how one young man traced a path through the world to find his life’s purpose. Wes Moore graduated from a difficult childhood in the Bronx and Baltimore to an adult life that would find him at some of the most critical moments in our recent history: as a combat officer in Afghanistan; a White House fellow in a time of wars abroad and disasters at home; and a Wall Street banker during the financial crisis. In this insightful book, Moore shares the lessons he learned from people he met along the way – from the brave Afghan translator who taught him to find his fight, to the resilient young students in Katrina-ravaged Mississippi who showed him the true meaning of grit, to his late grandfather, who taught him to find grace in service.

The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee

Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy – and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a common root problem: racism. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out? McGhee embarks on a deeply personal journey across the country from Maine to Mississippi to California, tallying what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm – the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others.

SECF members have exclusive access to the Winter 2020 issue of our quarterly Inspiration magazine, now available for viewing and download at SECF.org!

Here’s what you can read about in our latest issue:

• The winners of the inaugural Truist Foundation Promise Award – the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation and the Coastal Community Foundation – that helped their communities in the wake of tragedy while examining themselves. Today, both are providing leadership in addressing inequity while responding to the COVID-19 crisis.
• The story of the Greater High Point Food Alliance, a philanthropy-backed initiative that has built partnerships across multiple sectors – government, nonprofits, faith-based institutions and others – to combat food insecurity.
• A recap of the 51^st Annual Meeting, where SECF members didn’t let a lack of in-person events get in the way of connecting with one another while being educated and inspired by this year’s lineup of speakers and sessions.

This issue also includes insights from the newest members of the SECF Board of Trustees, as well as a year-end message from President & CEO Janine Lee!

You can view this issue and previous issues at the Inspiration page at SECF.org (login required).

If you’re involved with a project you think should be highlighted in a future issue of Inspiration, contact David Miller, director of marketing and communications, at david@secf.org.

All members have access to the new SECF Mobile App, the latest way to stay informed, engage with our events and programs and connect with peers across the region!

The Mobile App is available for iOS and Android devices. You can access the app here:
 

The SECF Mobile App makes the best benefits of membership available anytime, anywhere, right on your mobile device. Download the Mobile App today and you’ll be able to:

• Receive the latest news and updates from SECF via the Mobile App News Feed
• Register for all SECF events and programs
• Send and receive direct, 1-to-1 messages with SECF Members from across the region
• Connect with multiple colleagues at once through group chats
• Use the Member Directory for easy outreach
• Engage in discussions through Member Forums – post new topics and reply to others
• Participate in polls and surveys
• Access members-only resources on public policy and best practices
• Read the latest issues of Inspiration magazine
• Receive notifications so you don’t miss out on any of the above!

The Mobile App will be updated constantly with new content and features, but it also serves as an app for many SECF programs, including the Annual Meeting!

To use the mobile app, just download it from your device’s app store and sign in once using your SECF.org login and password – if you need help logging in, please email Stephen Sherman, director of research and data, at stephen@secf.org.

If you have other questions about the mobile app, or would like to request other features, please contact David Miller, director of marketing and communications, at david@secf.org.

SECF’s Lending Library gives our members the ability to borrow e-books and audiobooks on a variety of topics relevant to Southern philanthropy. Like any library, we’re constantly updating our offerings with new titles that reflect emerging trends and topics in the news. We’ve highlighted some of our most recent additions below!

If you’re not already using it, you can learn more about the Lending Library here to get started or browse our full collection of titles.  

Have a book or author you’d like to borrow that isn’t in our collection? Suggest a title by contacting Stephen Sherman via email at stephen@secf.org or by phone at (404) 524-0911.

SECF’s Lending Library allows SECF members to borrow e-books and audiobooks on a variety of topics relevant to Southern philanthropy. Like any library, we’re constantly updating our offerings with new titles that reflect emerging trends and topics in the news.

We’ve recently added several new titles focused on systemic racism and other topics. We’ve highlighted a few below, and a list of all new titles is at the end of this post.

Visit our Lending Library information page to learn more and to sign up for an account!

How to Be an Antiracist
By Ibram X. Kendi

Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism—and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. At it's core, racism is a powerful system that creates false hierarchies of human value; its warped logic extends beyond race, from the way we regard people of different ethnicities or skin colors to the way we treat people of different sexes, gender identities, and body types. Racism intersects with class and culture and geography and even changes the way we see and value ourselves. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas—from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilites—that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their posionous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves.

SECF is pleased to partner with the Council on Foundations (COF) and the United Philanthropy Forum to encourage participation in the 2020 Grantmaker Salary and Benefits Survey.

The annual Grantmaker Salary and Benefits (GSB) Survey provides grantmakers with the most comprehensive data on foundation staff and board compensation. Through this partnership, SECF is able to provide custom salary tables for Southeast grantmakers each fall. 

Your participation in the GSB survey is needed – the greater the participation, the greater the insights for the sector and for your fellow SECF members. 

What’s the benefit for participating organizations?

All survey participants (both COF members and non-members) will receive a copy of the full GSB report, the board compensation report, and access to COF’s benchmarking platform to create custom salary reports. The full report otherwise sells for $438 but is offered free to participating organizations. Reports and data will be released in October 2020.

How to Participate:

If you participated in the 2019 survey, go to Benchmark Central (https://bmc.cof.org/) and log in using your cof.org credentials to start the survey. Need help with your login? Email research@cof.org. 

If you did not participate in the 2019 survey, email research@cof.org with the first and last name, title, and email for each individual needing access.

Note that multiple individuals from your organization can work on your submission simultaneously, but each team member will need their own login and it is recommended that you appoint one person to coordinate your submission. 

See this page for answers to frequently asked questions as well as a list of documents you’ll need to complete the survey.

Thank you in advance for completing the GSB survey! Please submit your responses by Sunday, May 31. For more information, visit cof.org/2020GSBSurvey or email research@cof.org.

Today marks the debut of the SECF Lending Library – a members-only source of books and audiobooks on philanthropy, equity, leadership and more!

Over the past two weeks, we’ve seen that SECF members are eager for resources to inform and inspire their work. The SECF Lending Library makes obtaining these easier than ever – our curated collection is accessible from most of the devices you’re using at home, including laptops, smartphones, tablets and Kindle devices!

You can check out titles from the SECF Lending Library starting now! Our selections include works by national experts and thought leaders, plus recent Annual Meeting speakers like Bryan Stevenson and Isabel Wilkerson!

The Lending Library will also serve as the platform for the upcoming Chair’s Book Club, a key initiative inspired by our Equity Framework. We look forward to revealing the first Chair’s Book Club selection soon!

SECF has partnered with OverDrive to provide this new benefit – OverDrive works with hundreds of public library systems across the country to offer e-books and audiobooks to patrons free of charge. Just like these public libraries, the SECF Lending Library catalog will be accessible from Libby, a user-friendly app for iOS and Android devices that allows for borrowing and reading all in one place as well as Kindle devices. 

You can view our full guide to the SECF Lending Library here. If you’re ready to get started, click here to view all our available titles!

If you have questions or recommendations for future Lending Library titles, contact Stephen Sherman, SECF’s director of research and data, at stephen@secf.org or by calling (404) 524-0911.

The latest issue of Inspiration, SECF’s quarterly magazine dedicated to sharing stories of Southern philanthropy’s impact, is now available at SECF.org, with print editions arriving this week in the mail as well.

The fall 2019 issue includes:

• A look into the health equity work being pursued by the Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg, which was established six years ago and, since day one, has been focused on addressing the root causes of health outcome disparities in its community.
• The final installment of our Then, Now & What’s Next series marking SECF’s 50^th Anniversary. Our retrospective look at SECF’s history and impact on the field concludes by examining the evolution of foundation leadership in the South. Significant changes in the last 50 years include an increasingly diverse crop of leaders and growing complexity in duties and responsibilities.
• FSG, which will present a special postconference session at the Annual Meeting, walks through out changes made internally to advance equity can help a foundation do the same in its community.

Also in this issue: a message from SECF President & CEO Janine Lee, updates on new hires and promotions, a round-up of the latest members to join the SECF family and more, including a profile of a longtime SECF staff member who will attend her final Annual Meeting this year.

A print copy of Inspiration is mailed to each member organization as well as individual Hull Fellows alumni. Members can also login to SECF.org to download a PDF version.

If you have a story idea for an upcoming issue of Inspiration, contact David Miller, director of marketing and communications, at david@secf.org!

Starting today, SECF Members can connect to hundreds of their colleagues simply by sending an email! 

Our new Member Listservs make it easy to ask questions, solicit advice and share insights with foundation staff and trustees from across the Southeast. All SECF members in our database have been automatically subscribed to at least one list and can start discussions immediately! 

At launch, seven listservs are active:

• Community Foundations & Grantmaking Public Charities
• Corporate Foundations & Giving Programs
• Family Foundations & Philanthropic Individuals
• Health Legacy Foundations
• Independent & Operating Foundations
• CEOs, Presidents & Executive Directors
• Hull Fellows Alumni

In order to provide them access to as large a community as possible, Supporting Organizations within SECF were each given the choice of which constituency-based list they’d like to be part of. Lists will be refreshed monthly, though new staff members and trustees can be added earlier on request.