The Peer Skill Share program, which builds capacity and offers professional development for nonprofit professionals, is now housed at Forefront. After having taken a short hiatus, the program is again fully operating.

The Pierce Family Foundation created this inventive program in 2010 because of the foundation’s belief in the value of peer-to-peer professional development and nonprofit capacity building. To facilitate the switch from Pierce to Forefront, the program took a short break.

Peer Skill Share enables nonprofits to get the kind of help they most value — focused, tailored to their needs, and typically in person — and be compensated for their time, rather than paying a workshop fee. For foundations, the program provides a low-cost way to provide targeted technical assistance and to support organizational development across their entire grantee community.

How the Program Works
A nonprofit staffer who needs help on a particular topic is matched with an employee of another nonprofit who has expertise on that topic. The matched partners then meet one-on-one for a two to three hour session. Not only is the program free, but the organization of each person is given a $200 honorarium, in compensation for staff time spent on the program.

Who Can Participate
Funders may participate at various levels, depending on the number of grantees they wish to invite to the program. Currently, only grantees invited by Peer Skill Share’s foundation partners can participate.

If you are a funder and are interested in participating, email Emily Long for information.

Membership in Forefront is not a requirement to participate, as either a funder or a grantee.

Nonprofits who are currently eligible to participate in Peer Skill Share will receive an email with participation details the afternoon of March 1.

— Marilou Jones, Director of Communications