Investing for Impact

The term impact investing has been gaining brand value over the past five years. The precursors of community investing and socially responsible investing are ironically being dropped from the conversation as if to imply that impact investing is a brand new phenomenon. While there is innovation inherent in impact investing, it is important to leverage the histories – good and bad – from community development, socially responsible investing, and venture philanthropy in order to support the success, sustainability and...

Black History Month at Tides: Equity In Action

Historian Carter G. Woodson started Negro History Week in 1926 to educate the American people about African-American history and to promote that history as a more significant part of American history as a whole.  Despite his original intentions and the federal expansion of the week into a month, critics rightly argue that African Americans and other people of color are still viewed as the exception to the majority white rule, and that this marginalization continues to be pervasive and at the detriment to economic and social...

New Year, New Tides

Happy New Year! We are so excited to kick off this year with new and exciting programs and initiatives aimed at better supporting our clients, partners and the field.

Last year Tides spent a great deal of time revising internal systems to support organizational sustainability and improve service delivery to our partners and clients. This year we are poised to continue to offer our current services to donors and activists as well as explore new opportunities to support positive social change.

For donors, we...

Announcing the 1% Campaign

This month, one of our newest board members, Anne Mosle, kicks off the 1% Campaign.

The campaign is designed to engage Tides donors in support of Tides’ vision for social change. By investing 1% of her DAF back into Tides, Anne is supporting many of the new and exciting programs and initiatives, including:

The Future of Tides

I am excited to share some good news as the Tides family of people and programs is growing. We have added over 30 new clients to the Foundation since last year and increased grants processed through the Center by over $1.5M since 2010.

We have also redesigned Tides Partners, our online donor platform. It now allows donors to upload supporting documents when submitting a grant recommendation and decide whether to process the grant via check, domestic wire, or international wire. We have also redesigned how clients...

Fiscal Sponsorship: Proving Potential, Sustaining Impact

Those of us who care deeply about the nonprofit community find ourselves working overtime to navigate this period of economic, social, and political uncertainty.  While moments of uncertainty can cultivate confusion, I believe they can also breed a level of clarity and vision that produces tools for sustainable change.  There are significant opportunities to strengthen our sector and deepen the positive impact we make every day in our communities.

It is in this context, that the concept and practice of fiscal...

The Future of Tides

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A Time for Change

It is hard to believe but it has been one year since I came to Tides as Chief Executive Officer. This past year has seen some major changes and we’ve also had some major successes in our efforts to remain sustainable, competitive, and innovative.

When I arrived at Tides, 35 years after its founding, the organization was faced with increasing competition, rapidly declining interest rates, and pressures to update antiquated IT systems. Over the past several months, we have been working diligently to improve client...

Why We Support the #OccupyWallStreet Movement

The Zinn Education Project has been promoting the role of working people, women, people of color, and organized social movements in actively shaping history for years. I can only imagine how the 99 percent movement will be taught in years to come.

#OccupyWallStreet is clearly a people’s movement. There is a minimal presence of organized labor and it has purposely forgone the sometimes distracting charismatic personalities of many other movements in the making. Understated, organized, and committed are adjectives that...

Melissa L. Bradley: Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial (Video)

In this video blog, Tides CEO Melissa L. Bradley comments on the unveiling of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, reflecting on how King's lessons can be applied to our current moment of wealth disparity and economic crisis.  Watch now or jump to the transcript below:

Good day. This past weekend in DC, even through Hurricane Irene, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial was unveiled on the Mall.

The timeliness of this event should not be lost in the midst of all that is going on...