What is a Good Neighbor Committee (GNC)?
A team of employees who live or spend time in the community, interact with other residents and leaders, and help formulate and propose grants for local benefit. Good Neighbor Committees (GNCs for short) create an opportunity for more personal interaction between their host organization and other parts of the community... they can also provide leadership opportunities for employees who are not grantmakers or community-relations experts, but have useful knowledge and concern about the community, and talent they can share. The relationships that grow from this kind of personal engagement can have an independent value, above and beyond the monetary value of any grants or projects they generate.
Basic components:
- A “lead” staff member or facilitator, who will call the group together and guide the meetings
- Volunteers to serve on the committee
- A budget for grantmaking
- Whatever logistical provisions — space for meetings, administrative budget, clerical support — may be necessary to help the group operate
Takeaways are critical, bite-sized resources either excerpted from our guides or written by Candid Learning for Funders using the guide's research data or themes post-publication. Attribution is given if the takeaway is a quotation.
This takeaway was derived from Building Community Inside and Out.
