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FAQ

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About the Initiative

  • A collaborative philanthropic fund is a way for individuals, families, and institutions to pool their resources, creating more impact than any one donor could alone.

  • Pooling contributions allows Love, Portland to provide larger, longer-term, unrestricted funding than many funders might provide individually, while bringing resources together around a shared vision.

  • Participatory grantmaking shifts decision-making power from funders to people closer to the work. Love, Portland’s Strategic Advisors bring lived experience, nonprofit and philanthropic expertise, policy knowledge, and community connections to help select the five-organization cohort that will receive funding.

  • Love, Portland funds organizations as part of a five-organization cohort serving the Portland tri-county area (Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas counties). Together, the cohort must bring experience across five interconnected focus areas:

      • Keeping People Housed

      • Substance Use Disorder Treatment

      • Domestic & Family Violence Services

      • Foster Care Services

      • Youth Mentorship

  • Love, Portland is a collaborative philanthropic fund designed to organize resources, relationships, and wisdom differently. We pool contributions from multiple co-funders, provide larger, longer-term unrestricted funding, and shift decision-making power through participatory grantmaking.

    Rather than funding organizations individually, we fund a self-formed cohort and create space for them to build relationships, share what they know, and explore what becomes possible together. We move resources now, instead of growing an endowment, while learning from what collective work can reveal over time.

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Donors & Contributors

  • Anyone who shares our vision for a Portland where, together, everyone’s needs are met is welcome to contribute, whether as an individual, family, business, or foundation.

  • Yes. The Love, Portland Fund is a donor advised fund held at Oregon Community Foundation (OCF). Contributions are made directly to OCF for the Love, Portland Fund and are generally eligible for an immediate charitable tax deduction, subject to applicable tax rules.

  • Donor contributions are pooled to support Love, Portland’s three-year cohort. $1.5 million goes directly to the five participating organizations as unrestricted grants, and additional funds support the facilitated cohort, participatory grantmaking process and infrastructure.

  • No. Co-funders pool their resources around a shared vision, but funding decisions are made through our participatory grantmaking process. Love, Portland’s Strategic Advisors bring lived experience, nonprofit and philanthropic expertise, policy knowledge, and strong community connections to select the five-organization cohort that will receive funding.

    This allows those closer to the work, rather than those providing the funding, to hold decision-making power.

  • Yes. Love, Portland’s donor advised fund at Oregon Community Foundation (OCF) allows co-funders to set up recurring monthly contributions to the Love, Portland Fund.

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Grantees & Application Process

  • Organizations choose to apply together in groups of five. After confirming eligibility, one organization submits an application on behalf of the proposed cohort. Love, Portland’s Strategic Advisors will review applications and select one five-organization cohort through a participatory grantmaking process.

  • No. All grants are unrestricted, giving organizations the flexibility to use the funding where it’s most needed.

  • We provide multi-year, unrestricted grants. For our first cohort, each of the five organizations will receive $100,000 per year for three years, providing stable, flexible funding organizations can use where it’s needed most.

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Impact & Transparency

  • We’ll learn from what stable, unrestricted funding makes possible for each organization and the communities they serve. We’ll also learn from what emerges through three years of collaboration: what is working, what is missing, and what the cohort can see together that none of us can see alone.

  • We’ll share updates and learnings on our website & newsletter throughout the three-year cohort, including what the funding and collective work are making possible over time.