Transforming fundraising through peer learning by subsector

With nonprofits facing massive cuts in federal and foundation funding, fundraisers are in need of shared knowledge and resources like never before. This is especially true for frontline organizations serving the Latinx community—many working in racial and social justice and, in some cases, being targeted for investigation and persecution.

At Somos El Poder, the first Latinx-focused fundraising institute in the United States, we support organizations serving constituencies that are 51% or more Latinx, which includes many multiracial organizations.

In spring 2025, a survey of our 250 member organizations found that 55% had “seen a reduction of funding from funders because of a retreat from supporting funding racial justice.” Sadly, nearly 39% had had funders ask them “to remove or tone down ‘Latino’ or any racial justice message”—literally to deny who they are. And 27% had received more threats and verbal hostility since the election. Even as the Latinx community is being openly targeted, many funders are quietly retreating from funding our community.

In this challenging environment, where can fundraisers turn to learn about effective strategies?

Peer learning by subsector helps small and midsize nonprofits

At Somos El Poder, we realized as early as two years ago the need for stronger peer-to-peer learning. We started a program called “Juntos Podemos” (Together We Can) to gather organizations by subsector every few months to teach and learn from one another. So far, we have peer learning programs for six subsectors: immigration, public health/health disparities, arts and culture, community services, economic empowerment and entrepreneurship, and education and youth.

Why peer learning by subsector? Our regular training programs showed good results, but some things needed to be learned peer-to-peer, from those at similar organizations with high cultural competency. If an organization that looks like yours, with similar staff and budget size, working in the same issue area in a similar community, has increased their fundraising revenue by 50% in the last year, you need to stop what you’re doing and learn from them.

And peer learning is particularly helpful to small and midsize nonprofits like the ones we support. Most fundraising training is designed for large institutions that can pay big fees to consultants and has dedicated fundraising teams as well as supporting staff for prospect research and administrative tasks, a supportive board, and time to implement new systems. Most small and midsize nonprofits have few such resources, if any. In a resource-deprived environment, opportunities to learn from their peers are invaluable.

I saw the power of peer learning when I worked in public school reform years ago. We would gather leaders from school districts of similar sizes, budget, demographics, and staffing, identify those with outstanding student outcomes, and look at what they were doing differently. So, I thought this might be valuable for small and midsize Latinx-focused nonprofits.

How peer learning works best

We’ve identified some key factors that make peer learning effective:

Curated and moderated sessions: A Somos staffer or board member curates and moderates each session, highlighting the most successful fundraising practices and organizations. This allows us to focus on proven best practices in fundraising we want to disseminate, not just theories or ideas. Having each session staffed helps keep the discussion on track and positive.

Board member engagement: We encourage not only fundraising staff but also board members from the same organization to attend. One of the biggest impediments to changing fundraising strategies is a well-meaning but ignorant board. Training staff and board members together helps improve the chances new practices will be implemented.

Training plus best practices: We offer a simplified training module, combined with a best practices sharing session. For example, when we had an immigration organization share how it started to increase its small monthly donors. The training was about the tools needed to do that.

What frontline nonprofits need now

I’ve presented this peer learning model to funders. One would think, for example, that funders in public health would be eager to strengthen that subsector’s Latinx-focused organizations. But while they see the logic in it, strengthening nonprofit fundraising doesn’t fit the grantmaking criteria for most funders today. At best, it’s pushed into the tiny budget that is “capacity building.” This isn’t capacity building; it’s a new form of funding they have yet to understand.

The urgent need—and the opportunity—to diversify funding sources, especially helping nonprofits grow individual giving, is right in front of us. If funders continue to focus solely on making program grants and don’t help strengthen fundraising efforts, even their grantees could be forced to close their doors, fire staff, and leave their communities worse off than before.

Peer learning benefits the broader nonprofit sector

Subsector-based fundraising training and peer learning programs where nonprofits can learn how other organizations successfully navigated a similar crisis could help save those nonprofits. This type of learning also creates community and solidarity for organizations, which is especially important for organizations being targeted.

There are many “Grantmakers in_______” type organizations that could reach out for help setting up peer learning programs and identify the leading small and midsize nonprofits that successfully fundraise in that subsector. Let’s take this opportunity to fundamentally rethink how we support the organizations working in the subsectors we care about and fund.

Photo credit: Arturo Peña Romano Medina/Getty Images