News & Stories

Three women stand in a circle having a conversation.

By investing in tools, resources, and staff through capacity-building grants, nonprofits can strengthen their operations and create lasting community impact. Join us as we delve into the transformative power of resourcing nonprofits to fill their needs and build resilient teams for a sustainable future.

Magic Cabinet has a unique take on participatory grantmaking, inviting small cohorts of grantees to share flexible, capacity-building funds. Magic Cabinet’s leadership explains how it works in a report by Wendy Paris of Inside Philanthropy.

Selecting communities and organizations to fund is a critical process for Magic Cabinet, a philanthropic organization focused on long-term capacity-building grants for nonprofits in underresourced communities.

In this blog series, we’ll dive into each of the engagement phases described above our continuous learnings, and how Magic Cabinet works tirelessly to ensure and improve our process so that communities are the loudest voice in shaping their own future.

This report summarizes Magic Cabinet’s research and engagement in funding Solano County nonprofit organizations. In addition, we highlight opportunities, challenges, and recommendations for future philanthropic initiatives in Solano county as well as a framework for engagement for alike regions.

When you see an iceberg, the portion visible above water is only a tiny part of a larger whole. You can think of nonprofits in the same way. Deep below the waterline of every nonprofit lies an enormous, invisible infrastructure keeping its organization afloat.

Magic Cabinet was founded as a learning organization. We did not want to make something for nonprofits – we wanted to build it with them. Together and over ten years, we experimented, with the aim to develop a new type of philanthropic partnership.

Just as the original magic cabinet sparked Ken's career of creation, he founded Magic Cabinet to be that same spark for others. So with a little bit of coin, and the help of everyone’s self-made do-hickey--let's work together to create a just and equitable world.

Stop asking your grantees if they’re making an impact on your mission. Instead, ask yourself how you can become a nonprofit partner, not their director.