“Moment of Spark” Grants: Supporting Collective Effort for the Love of Humanity

by Akil Reynolds, Programmatic Partnerships Manager

When joining the Community Engagement team at the Initiative six months ago, I was eager to leverage my experience to foster connection and amplify the power of community, a calling I handle delicately, as I support the rich diversity of Georgia. As I began to acclimate to this new role, my colleague Ky shared how central earning trust, actively listening, fellowshipping often, honoring the past, and being additive to an extraordinarily complex landscape was to our work. In reflecting on where we are now, I believe we have truly led with this intention in mind. Through tapping into the abundance of ingenuity and expertise in our community, we are developing opportunities that aim to add value to the great work already happening across Georgia.

To that end, we are excited to introduce in the coming weeks our new Moment of Spark grant opportunity. Moment of Spark has been designed to enhance collective effort among communities across Georgia. These grants will provide catalytic, place-based funding with the flexibility needed for trusted community anchors to collaborate toward systems change. Through this grant, we aim to foster responsiveness to ever-evolving local contexts, supporting innovative projects that ignite long-lasting impact. Currently, we loosely define a Moment of Spark as a turning point – when a pivotal idea, event, or condition starts to ignite actions leading to transformative change. Through Moment of Spark, we aim to support and learn from such moments, strengthening collaborations, shifts in attitudes, and new ways of working that will lead to long-term improvements in community health and well-being.

In our learning so far, we have realized achieving systemic health equity requires a shift in focus. Our own shifts have led us to further prioritize a crucial but often overlooked aspect of how to support systems change within communities: collective effort. Collective effort shows up when diverse groups of people, genuinely committed to a different future, come together with humility to work toward change. They are spurred on by their common goal and put to use the rich tapestry of skills and resources already present within their community. They seek to move away from certain ways of working that promote hyper individualism, harmful competition, and unnecessary silos. All of this can make true partnership difficult– cultivating “icky” workspaces where trust is low, stress is high, and success is rigidly defined.

Funding approaches to promote systems change represents not only a shift for our organization but also a broader movement rippling through philanthropic practice. As we have evolved at the Initiative, we’ve come to recognize that achieving systemic change requires collective effort, which demands trust, equity, partnership, courageous leadership (sound familiar? 😉), and a willingness to embrace complexity. When asking our community partners how we can be supportive of them, we’ve heard them say that, at times, they felt as if traditional social impact strategies have promoted rigid frameworks that stifle innovation and hinder collaboration. The Moment of Spark grants are our response – an intentional investment in collective efforts to overcome these barriers and move us closer to realizing systemic health equity. This is where sustained changes and improvements that allow the opportunity for all people to attain their fullest potential for health exists. These shifts represent the next step in our own learning journey as we strive to meet the needs of our partners by initiating new ways of approaching philanthropic work.

The word “philanthropy” comes from the Greek words philos (love) and anthropos (humankind). I invite you to reflect on the ways you have been loved best and will assume that much of this began with someone “meeting you where you were at” – a process that requires both learning and openness. Human beings are beautifully complex, and communities, even more so. It’s precisely because of this complexity that a key part of our journey is learning. We are continuously learning what is needed to build abundant communities, grounded in health, well-being, and – might I even add – more love, across Georgia.

 While there are many ways to approach this work in honor of love for humankind, we offer this call to action to organize around the most promising opportunities that matter to your community – your Moment of Spark.

We invite you to learn more about this upcoming grant opportunity, details about which are provided below.