2025 in Review: GNOFN’s Impact
In 2025, GNOFN deepened its role as a learning network, bringing funders together across issue areas to respond to urgent challenges, reflect on our region’s past, and invest in more resilient futures. Here’s a look at some key moments through the lens of our Action Tables and collective initiatives:
Black Men & Boys: Investing in Community Voices
The Greater New Orleans Funders Network awarded a $20,000 grant from its Black Men & Boys Action Table to the New Orleans Children & Youth Planning Board to center Black boys in the next phase of refining and advancing the Youth Master Plan. This youth-led effort elevates the voices of those most impacted to drive systems change and shape a more equitable future for young people in New Orleans.
Read more: Elevating the Voices of Black Boys to Shape New Orleans’ Future
Climate Justice: From Recovery to Resilience
As climate impacts intensify, GNOFN convened members around the realities facing frontline communities and the philanthropic strategies needed to support adaptation, mitigation, and community-led solutions. This work reinforced the importance of aligning climate funding with racial equity, public health, and economic stability.
Read more: Advancing Climate Justice Through Collaboration
Criminal Justice: Investing in Systems Change and Community Safety
In 2025, GNOFN members continued to explore pathways toward a more just criminal legal system by centering community voices, evidence-based reforms, and long-term strategies that promote safety, dignity, and opportunity for all.
Read more: Reimagining Youth Justice
Education: Confronting History, Shaping the Future.
This year, GNOFN members examined the long-term impacts of policy decisions on public education, particularly the legacy and consequences of the end of desegregation in Louisiana. Through shared learning and dialogue, funders explored how history continues to shape present-day inequities and what it will take to support more just education systems moving forward.
Read more: The End of Desegregation in Louisiana
Equitable Development: Recommitting to Equity in Greater New Orleans
In 2025, GNOFN members relaunched the Equitable Development Action Table (EDAT), and hosted a convening for local government agencies, community-based organizations, and philanthropy to collaboratively set a vision for an equitable New Orleans. Members of EDAT also hosted a webinar on building Black generational wealth.
Twenty Years On: Reflections from Hurricane Katrina
As the region marked two decades since Hurricane Katrina, GNOFN helped create space for reflection, accountability, and learning. Members revisited lessons from disaster recovery, particularly around equity, public education, and philanthropy’s role in long-term wellbeing. GNOFN proudly provided grants to The Data Center to produce the New Orleans Index at Twenty, and to the Katrina 20 Local Planning Committee to support the commemoration and planning activities during the Week of Action. This work culminated in a new GNOFN report that synthesizes Katrina-era learnings and makes a clear case for funding wellbeing as essential infrastructure for resilient communities.
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GNOFN @ 10 and the Launch of the Wellbeing Fund
Marking GNOFN’s 10th anniversary, members celebrated a decade of collaboration by honoring our founding partners and launching the Wellbeing Fund, a new pooled fund supporting organizations that strengthen community wellbeing across the region. In 2025, the Fund made its first disbursement of $80,000 to R2I Community Champions, putting our shared learning into action. This milestone reflects what we’ve learned together: lasting systems change requires sustained investment not only in programs and policies, but in people, relationships, and care.
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As we look ahead, these moments from 2025 remind us what’s possible when funders learn together and invest for the long term. GNOFN’s work is grounded in the belief that wellbeing is essential infrastructure for a just and resilient Greater New Orleans, and we invite partners to help sustain this momentum by supporting the Greater New Orleans Wellbeing Fund. Your participation ensures that shared learning continues to translate into flexible, community-informed action in the year ahead!