Community IS the Table
This is part of our introductory series highlighting the why and how of MCSW’s launch.
One of my first real jobs was with a Texas-based math nonprofit. I was on the program implementation team, where I spent hundreds of hours inside classrooms and community spaces. My car at that time was a 1995 Mercedes C220, a 20 year-old car refurbished by a family friend and purchased with the support of my aunt. I loved that car and it treated me well, right until it took its final ride with me and shut down on the I45 Trinity bridge in South Dallas. That nonprofit similarly shut down a few years later, partly because it didn't understand what its community of families, educators, and workers wanted from it.
Fast forward a few years to the height of the COVID pandemic and an uprising catalyzed by the death of George Floyd by police hands. Under that backdrop, a new movement emerged. Community-Centric Fundraising changed the way I, now a fundraising professional, viewed my profession and the larger world. That community is also where I met my co-founders. Since then, we've worked to answer one question:
How do we shift practices in the social sector--and in philanthropy--so that communities are at the heart of our missions?
Defining Community
When we say community in this context, it is a multilayered approach. At the center is a core community of focus: our ecosystem of fiscally sponsored projects that have entrusted their missions to us. But there's also a broader community that we're accountable to. That includes our workers across the MCSW core and projects; our board who themselves steward this organization; our donors and volunteers that power this work; and the beneficiaries of mission work--who may never know the name Movement Commons Southwest yet still depend on us to do our jobs well.
It's important to name the tensions that arise when organizations consider their whole community of stakeholders. One tool that has been incredibly useful is Deepa Ayer's Social Change Ecosystem Map. Through it we see that people and institutions hold different and equally important roles, and these roles are not determined by traditional means like titles and gift sizes. This is true for both our internal community and the larger social movements that MCSW supports.
This is why we say, "Community is the Table." We hope to create a public good that is trusted by and accountable to the people. We consider needs equitably--people get what they need, not what we think they need. As a concrete example, project partners are represented by a named seat on our board. As we grow we'll explore how to embed them more deeply into our governance.
What’s Next for Our Community
We’re excited to find out how community develops in our context. The Southwest is a big place with lots of people and lots of stories to tell. We are partnering with Social Impact Commons for community program design sessions which will help ensure that our programs truly align with the community’s needs. Also on our roadmap are plans to further deepen our connections within specific communities, through specialized project cohorts and other initiatives.
We invite you to join our community, and there are several ways to plug in now as we prepare for our operational launch in 2027. Your early support as a donor lays the foundation for this platform of community-driven solutions and signals community endorsement to other individual and institutional donors. We’re also building a list of groups and organizations interested in our fiscal sponsorship program. If you or someone you know is interested, please reach out to us to discuss further. If you want to follow our work, please follow us on LinkedIn or Instagram.