The People Closest to the Ground Are the People Closest to the Solutions

P4
Hawaiʻi People’s Fund was formed to address social injustice, economic disparity, shortsighted development, and indigenous dispossession. “Our work is in resourcing and advocating, uplifting, and healing the intersectional effects of those inequities,” says Executive Director Micky Huihui. “We are primarily connectors,” Micky told us when we talked about her experience in HIR’s accelerator. “We identify values-aligned investment opportunities, work collaboratively with communities, and serve as resource deployers through activist-led, consensus-based grant making. People’s Fund fuels movements for positive social change.” But resourcing grassroots movements and activists isn’t easy, especially for a 48-year-old organization that wants to gain clarity and embrace change. Micky credits HIR’s program with transforming her organization.

In your role as Executive Director, how has the HIR experience and coaching changed your perspective on your organization, what it does, and how you lead it?

It’s changed everything about how I view the organization, our work in it, and our collective work with the board. HIR gave us clarity on why we exist, what makes us uniquely valuable, and how we’re going to ramp up to be more effective. It was the best professional experience of my life.
The work we did on our Theories of Transformation and Change was miraculous. We are connectors. We discovered that we’ve primarily been champions of kanaka maoli rights and protection of ʻāina for the past 48 years. That clarity allowed me to be bold and make simple changes to the narrative that we were projecting. Our value is that we can kokua community through advocacy and connections to people that can give them more resources than we ever could. HIR helped us see that that was possible. Without a doubt, we wouldn’t be where we are now without decades of inspired leadership and support–their foresight and dedication to an equitable, sustainable, and just Hawaiʻi brought us to this pivotal moment when Hawaiʻi needs us the most. They held fast to the notion that investing in change is the best investment any of us can make, and in doing so, built up an incredible resource for our grassroots community I’m so grateful to serve a small role in this legacy of community giving and doing.

We asked Hawaiʻi People’s Fund Board Chair Matthew Ing what differences he has seen in Micky since HIR and how that has benefitted HPF?

It’s been amazing seeing her go through HIR; you can see the growth. It gave her confidence as an ED [Executive Director], especially on the technical side of things. I’ve always appreciated Micky’s ability to maintain the humanity and keep a conversation going with the people on the ground. We think about HPF as trying to meet people where they’re at and to support the kinds of capacity that each org or each hui needs and not projecting our wants and needs onto them. We want to support them because the people closest to the ground are the people closest to the solutions.

HIR has helped Micky add new technical expertise to that with the numbers and being strategic with the resource deployment side of what we do. It prepared us to do greater things that have been dreams for the past four decades are materializing thanks to Micky’s work.

The networks she’s built have been expanding. That’s not only due to people she’s met through HIR but also the way she’s honed talking about our work—delivering that value proposition to different kinds of people and thinking about partnering as leverage and a way to expand our community and not strictly fundraising. She’s always coming from a community-building perspective. Honing that value proposition has been vital. We’ve seen tremendous confidence growing in Micky.

We’re in a tremendous time of abundance because of her leadership.

2020GranteeLocations 1536x976 1 600x381 1
2020UGAGranteeLocations 1024x651 1 600x381 1
Hawaiʻi People’s Fund awarded over $102,000 in grants this year.

What were some memorable a-ha moments or epiphanies from the HIR experience?

The most significant a-ha moment was the financials module. We couldn’t address how to change our effectiveness as grantmakers without getting a grasp on our financials. Coming face-to-face with the story our financials told allowed us to understand what was keeping us stuck. It changed how we tell our story and sparked change organizationally. It allowed us to move from organization-focused to beneficiary-and-community-change-focused and to be boldly focused on the possibilities. Because of HIR, I broke the complacency of doing it how it’s always been done.

The moment I bring with me, even today, is that HIR was a space to work on our organization instead of in it—taking a deliberate step back to work on how to keep what’s great about the organization and discern what used to work in 1975 but is not working in 2020. That clarity has moved the organization forward leaps and bounds.

https cdn.evbuc .com images 93457367 315525185034 1 original 1

How did you benefit from being a cohort with both nonprofits and for-profit businesses?

We were the oldest and only grant-making organization in the room. We’re a nonprofit, but we benefited from both sides of the training. There was valuable information geared towards the businesses and parallels to our work in the entrepreneur side of social impact.
Being with a cohort of partners allowed me to develop and grow into an awareness of what I could bring to the organization. And what the organization could bring to Hawaiʻi in a more meaningful way.
The relationships built with our cohort were the most beneficial aspect. We were able to join superpowers. Kealoha Domingo (Nui Kealoha) ended up being our caterer for our annual dinner. ʻAha Kāne ended up becoming an HPF grantee. Jeff Gilbreath (Hawaii Community Lending) joined our board. Kelea Levy was the financial module advisor, and it was the first time I heard someone use financial terms I understood. And now she’s our consultant. Working with Jeff and Kelea is transforming everything.
I feel blessed to have learned how to think differently right before the world shut down. The work never stopped. It looked different and we had to adapt but I don’t know where we’d be if COVID had occurred before the HIR training.
GivingProject 768

Tell us a little bit about the inaugural Giving Project.

Giving Projects began on the continent with community-led fundraising and the power of centering Black liberation and indigenous sovereignty. We’ve taken a lot of time to make the Giving Project Model Hawaiʻi-specific. The clarity around how we’re going to deliver that happened at HIR. The Giving Project is a funding exchange ʻohana who will become part of our legacy of resourcing grassroots work by receiving training for change and working together with a commitment to social justice. It creates safe spaces for learning about, advocating for, and resourcing movements for change. It’s grantmaking decided by and for the people who are most affected.

We recognize that the communities we serve already have the power—by redirecting community-raised resources to fuel that power, we amplify the reach of a unique partnership of activists and donors who share a vision of a just and equitable Hawaiʻi.

The most important piece of the Giving Project is authentic relationship building. We hope these folks continue collaborating and stay connected to the organizations to continue advocating for them in their own communities. HIR made me believe that the domino effect of support and advocacy is possible.

Recognizing and embracing our true value of being a connector surfaced through HIR. We’re positioned to grow an army of advocates, to spread the joy and the fulfillment that comes from grassroots organizing.

HPF has helped to support, build capacity, and amplify the impact of grassroots social change movements in Hawaiʻi since 1972. Want to connect with the People’s Fund or support their work?

Visit their website and meet their grantees.

Interested in referring an enterprise to HIR’s Accelerator? Send them our way! Recruitment will begin in 2021.

Tell us a little bit about the inaugural Giving Project.

Giving Projects began on the continent with community-led fundraising and the power of centering Black liberation and indigenous sovereignty. We’ve taken a lot of time to make the Giving Project Model Hawaiʻi-specific. The clarity around how we’re going to deliver that happened at HIR. The Giving Project is a funding exchange ʻohana who will become part of our legacy of resourcing grassroots work by receiving training for change and working together with a commitment to social justice. It creates safe spaces for learning about, advocating for, and resourcing movements for change. It’s grantmaking decided by and for the people who are most affected.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit dolo

Scroll to Top