Infinity Theorem
In a political climate that demands scale often from organizations, movements, and funders, Piece by Piece Strategies believes that the capacity, base, and infrastructure behind the scenes is vital to creating & sustaining the change and growth we hope to see. Our strategy to grow and sustain social movements is focused on implementing a theory where each program and community feeds into another, an ecosystem that is constantly refueling and connecting all parts, and in essence sustaining itself. Our formula is best represented as the infinity symbol, deeply connecting all parts, with the ability to exponentially grow beyond our wildest imaginations.
In short, Piece by Piece Strategies believes that strong and resilient individuals and organizations create concrete victories and improvements for the communities most impacted by the issues we’re fighting for. In the current climate, we must maximize the impact of our institutions, organizations, and leadership to generate best practices, reduce competition, and move towards a future of dignity for everyday people.
At Piece by Piece Strategies we believe that how the work gets done is just as important as what work is accomplished. The how for Piece by Piece Strategies is exhibited in the consistent prioritization of equity in our work. Equity as a value and a practice is defined as “the state, quality or ideal of being just, impartial and fair.”The concept of equity is synonymous with fairness and justice. It is helpful to think of equity as not simply a desired state of affairs or a lofty value. To be achieved and sustained, equity needs to be thought of as a structural and systemic concept. From staff, to programs, to internal infrastructure and evaluation, at every point in our work we are actively prioritizing equity. Piece by Piece Strategies prioritizes grassroots leadership and initiatives empowering marginalized communities (People of color, LGBTQ communities, immigrants, those who have been deeply impacted by the mass incarceration system, and people in poverty) to identify their needs, gaps and how they can best be resourced.
Capacity Building
Piece by Piece partners with Foundations and organizations to create customizable cohorts, trainings, and facilitation that guides individuals, organizations, and ecosystems towards their desired outcomes. We have programs that support alignment and reserve time for on demand facilitation and trainings. Our core programmatic cohorts include an Executive Director Cohort for youth-led or youth-serving organizations and an Emerging Movements cohort. Our core framework is set around three core competencies; Ensuring healthy organization transitions, pushing organizations towards sustainable scale, and the developing innovations at the intersections of civic engagement, culture and technology.
Trusting Learning Communities
Piece by Piece is creating containers for long term relationship building between organizations and networks. We build deep partnerships to break the isolation between leaders and organizations and create a container for collective troubleshooting. sharing and creating best practices. Lastly we create a culture of constant feedback that encourages experimentation, evaluation in real time, and operationalizing successes. This program area partners with networks, institutions, and organizations to uplift best practices, share research, and build a collaborative environment.
Equitable Resource Growth
Piece by Piece grantmaking focuses on how we make the greatest impact on the issue area and in the sector – not measuring organization by organization or cycle by cycle performance. This means we often fund experiments and new innovations knowing that some failure or learnings advance the sector more than an arbitrary quantitative metric. These regranting and resource alignment projects move dollars to programs, ideas, and regions with a deep partnership with movements and grassroots organization.
Idea Accelerator
Through Piece by Piece landscaping work we often identify 1) Opportunities to incubate new generative ideas into formations and 2) Identify gaps in the social justice ecosystem that have often gone unaddressed or have resurfaced. The idea accelerator brings expertise, landscape analysis, and infrastructure together to launch new programs, convene critical conversations, and experiment through centering the needs of the sector.
Learn more about our full offering of programs and services