Finding My People, Rewriting the Script: A Reflection on the PGM Start Well-Cohort 1
May 2, 2025
By Sara Wilcox, Executive Director of Snow-Redfern Foundation
When I joined the Start Well cohort — an initiative by the Participatory Grantmaking Community — I thought I was stepping into a learning space. What I didn’t realize was that I was also stepping into a mirror. And a magnifying glass. And, most unexpectedly, a reunion.
It felt like finding my people — folks who spoke the same language I had been stumbling to articulate for years: participation, equity, shared resources, holding space, relationship, and the radical act of ceding power to those most impacted. People who didn’t just believe in these values, but who were living the mess and magic of implementing them.
It was more than a cohort. It was a container for transformation.
From Intuition to Intention
Two years ago, at the Snow-Redfern Foundation, we reached a crossroads. After years of making well-intentioned decisions for our communities, we began asking the uncomfortable but necessary question: “Why do we believe we are qualified to make these grant decisions without them?” That question cracked something open.
When I discovered participatory grantmaking — specifically through the Participatory Grantmaking Community — it wasn’t just a moment of clarity. It was a homecoming. I spent the next year chasing the thread: talking to anyone who would share their wisdom, devouring articles, stalking case studies, and basically enrolling myself in an unofficial, unpaid, heart-led graduate program in unlearning.
When I brought the idea to our board, it wasn’t met with hesitation, but with resonance. This was the direction we had been waiting for. And since then, we’ve been experimenting, adapting, and listening. We’ve built statewide collectives that center youth and adult partners with lived experience. We’ve launched pilots and redesigned our internal structures to reflect a new mission: to empower youth, inspire changemakers, and energize partnerships for impact.
Snow-Redfern Foundation’s recent PGM Youth Grantmakers, who all reside in a rural Nebraska community and just wrapped up their second grantmaking workshop.
We’ve rewritten our values from the ground up:
- Youth Voice
- Community Wisdom
- Meaningful Engagement
- Collaborative Learning
- Trust Through Transparency
And with these as our compass, our vision became clear: Nebraska youth will thrive within inclusive communities and participatory systems of care.
What the Start Well Programme Stirred
Being part of Start Well affirmed so much — but it also disrupted me in the best way. It gave me new tools, new frameworks, new colleagues-turned-friends — but it also called me inward.
The questions we explored weren’t just technical. They were personal.
How do I show up in power?
What am I still clinging to in systems I say I want to change?
Where does the work of grantmaking end, and the work of being human begin?
Participatory grantmaking isn’t just about shifting who gets to decide. It’s about how we hold space, how we hold decisions, how we hold each other, and how we learn to hold ourselves accountable in deeper, messier, more honest ways.
And honestly? It’s not always easy. But it is joyful. And it’s the most alive I’ve felt in this work in a long time.
An Invitation
If you’re reading this as someone who’s curious about participatory practices — someone who senses that philanthropy could be more human, more connected, more courageous — I invite you to begin where you are.
You don’t need all the answers. You don’t need a perfect plan. You just need a willingness to listen differently, to share power, and to see your role not as the architect of change, but as a partner in co-creation.
This path will stretch you. It will teach you as much about yourself as it does about systems. And if you’re lucky, it will lead you — like it did me — to the deep joy of watching others rise into their own leadership, voice, and vision.
That joy is sacred. And it’s more than enough to begin with.
Sara Wilcox is the Executive Director of the Snow-Redfern Foundation, based in Nebraska. Her work centers on lifting up youth voices, cultivating authentic partnerships, and building ecosystems where young people help lead the way toward inclusive, thriving communities.