AFN's 2023 Annual Report gives a high level review of their work last year. For 19 years, AFN has provided a forum for grantmakers and financial institutions to connect, collaborate, and collectively invest in helping more people achieve economic security. This report reflects our work over the...

Poverty stems from experiences of exclusion and isolation in addition to a lack of financial resources, especially for equity deserving members of society. When individuals feel disconnected and undervalued, it can lead to a cycle of poverty that can be further perpetuated by race, ethnicity,...

Fresh perspectives and new approaches are needed to generate results and effectively address the complexity and interconnectedness of the social and environmental issues confronting communities. It is imperative that we build our collective capacity in the practice of community innovation. It is...

The Asset Funders Network engages philanthropy to advance equitable wealth building and economic mobility. For 18 years, AFN has provided a forum for grantmakers to connect, collaborate, and collectively invest in helping more people achieve economic security. This report reflects their work over...

AFN's 2021 Annual Report gives a high level review of our work last year, including some snapshots into the place-based initiatives in our regions. Across our regions, AFN is working with grantmakers on collaborative efforts to advance equitable wealth building and economic mobility. One example...

This report reveals that women of color encounter systemic obstacles to their advancement over and above the barriers faced by white women and men of color. Education and training are not the solution—women of color with high levels of education are more likely to be in administrative roles and...

This report discusses the vulnerability of millions of people in the US who lack adequate emergency savings. A workplace-based solution—rainy day savings accounts— can potentially help workers with low savings weather financial...

How has the Vibrant Communities – Cities Reducing Poverty (VC – CRP) network contributed to poverty reduction in Canada? In seeking to answer this central question, the State of Cities Reducing Poverty paper highlights the network’s numerous and varied...

This report provides information on the Financial Empowerment Center model, the people it served, the outcomes they achieved, the impact services had on nonprofit and city partners, and lessons learned for others looking to replicate or support this model. The evaluation was designed as a...

This collaboration primer is a hands-on resource for organizations seeking concrete methods to create sustainable partnerships. This resource is based on the literature focusing on inter-agency collaboration and the experiences of a multi-stakeholder partnership for health promotion. The...

Increasingly, the notion of “Housing First” has been promulgated internationally as the turnkey solution to homelessness. In Canada, government investment in Housing First has become de rigueur from coast to coast. This paper proposes the extension of Housing First as a guiding philosophy...

As we hurtle towards a human community of 9.7 billion people by the year 2050, coupled with new technologies and the growing challenges of our planet’s carrying capacity, there is more and more discussion of systems and how they change or are created. The post-war era has witnessed an...

Is Collective Impact merely a re-branding of collaborative approaches that have been used for years, or does this model provide new insights and techniques that will in fact break through on some of the most intractable problems affecting western societies? In this special issue of The...

System mapping is a process often cited in social change literature as an effective way to infuse systems thinking into strategy development and evaluation efforts. However, there is a dearth of practical “how to” guides to help stakeholders apply the principles of systems thinking to their...