Imagine you’re a community leader fighting for greenspaces, extreme weather preparedness, responsible development, clean water, and access to basic needs for your friends and neighbors. You have ideas—your own and your community’s—to address these challenges, but every funding opportunity you apply for and receive comes with red tape and overhead.

Now imagine you’re a River Network Flow Funder, trusted to flow funding directly to these community leaders without restrictions or constraints. What change would these communities see? What ways would lives be improved? How would the creativity and flexibility of local leaders—those who know their community needs best—lead to bigger impacts than any outside entity could ever imagine?

Since 2021 over $300,000 has flowed, from a private donor to River Network to Flow Funders, to 34 recipients. The process and work is all rooted in trust and create its own ripples in and across communities from Detroit, to New Orleans, to New Jersey, to Texas, to California. Each recipient, a local leader or community organization, has taken this trust-based investment and turned it into a unique and community-specific benefit to improve lives.

We believe equitable and enduring solutions start with community – created with, by, and for the people most impacted. Trust-based philanthropy like the Flow Fund is an effective and meaningful way to support exactly that. Now, see this belief in action through the stories of some of the Flow Fund recipients, and the countless ripples their work has sparked.

What’s the Flow Fund?

Learn more about the Flow Fund Circle, the Flow Funders, and the structure of this powerful program.

Trail Mix: Building Connections to Nature in the Oranges

Daniel chose Sharee and Trail Mix as one of his Flow Fund recipients in 2023 and 2024. Trail Mix serves as a guided tour for Orange and East Orange youth, seniors, and everyone in between to be introduced or rediscover the accessible land preserved close to them. Trail Mix hikes take place in the South Mountain Reservation, led by Sharee and community partner Mike Brick.

In 2025, Sharee is joining the Flow Fund Circle in a new role: Flow Funder. We’re thrilled at this ripple of the work and eager to see where this new path leads for Sharee and her recipients.

Mapping Trail Mix’s Ripples of Impact

In March 2024, River Network staff traveled to Orange, NJ to engage one flow fund recipient—the Orange HUUB—in a Ripple Effects Mapping session. This is a storytelling and evaluation tool to collect stories to evaluate the impact of the work that was funded, including community gardens in 2021-22 and the Trail Mix Program from 2022-24.

Participants in the session were familiar with the programs of the Orange HUUB or with the City of Orange more broadly. They shared stories, reflecting on the ways that the HUUB programs make people feel more connected to each other and to nature. They also noted the physical and mental health benefits inherent in breaking down barriers to accessing green spaces in the City of Orange.

Using a community benefits analysis (*based on the Community Capitals Framework), these reflections were categorized into natural, cultural, built, human, social, political, and financial benefits.

What the analysis shows is that social and human benefits are the largest assets of the programs. And social benefits, research shows, are the foundation on which all the others grow. It also shows opportunities for growth, particularly in political and financial spaces.

The good news is — Sharee Harrison — the founder of the Trail mix program and a consistent flow fund recipient has recently moved into the role of a River Network Flow Funder, enabling her to flow more dollars into her community and continue this work.

Detroit’s Water Warriors’ Ripples

Flow Funder Monica Lewis-Patrick is CEO and co-founder of We the People of Detroit. Many of her recipients are in the Detroit area—fellow Water Warriors—but the circle also extends out to West Virginia and California. This picture of the ways clean water issues span the nation and the importance of working across distance and difference is clear in this particular group of recipients. All are passionate local leaders who deeply know their community’s challenges, from orange toxic water due to mountain top mining, to education support for single mothers, water access, and affordable housing, and all have found a lifeline in the Flow Fund, ensuring their work continues.

For la Asociación de Gente Unida por el Agua (AGUA), Flow Funds supported a trip to DC to engage directly with partners and lawmakers on water justice. For recipient Gwen Howard, who used the funds to support Redeem Detroit, the Flow Fund gift rippled into matching funds of $100,000 to expand their programs.

Monica spoke about recipients Paula Swearengin and Gwen Howard at River Network’s Virtual Town Hall event in January 2025. Enjoy the clips below to get a sense of the passionate people behind these Flow Fund dollars.

Leona Tate Foundation for Change

The Leona Tate Foundation for Change—an organization that focuses primarily on educating the public on the lessons of the Civil Rights movement—has been a mainstay of the Flow Fund Circle since its inception in 2021 and originally funded by Arthur Johnson. For Arthur, it was important to include Leona Tate and the Tate, Etienne, and Prevost (TEP) Center as his recipient as a way to preserve history, educate the community, and provide affordable housing in an area heavily affected by Hurricane Katrina.

While it is now known as the TEP Center, the building was once the McDonogh #19 Public school: the school that Leona Tate and classmates Gail Etienne and Tessie Provost integrated in 1960. The building was closed in 2004 then damaged in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina.  In 2009, Dr. Tate established the Leona Tate Foundation for Change and worked for many years to redevelop and reopen the school. The lower level serves as a museum and education center grounded in racial equity principles while the top level provides affordable housing for elders in the community. See photos below from the Flow Fund Circle’s tour of this historical landmark.

Living Philanthropy: Stepping into Love in Houston

Teresa Davis’s role has been multifaceted and impactful in the Flow Fund Circle. Beginning as a Flow Funder in 2021, she played a key role in pioneering the River Network Flow Fund Circle platform since its inception. In this capacity, she directly led and shaped funding initiatives, empowering and financially supporting individuals and organizations alike. She then transitioned into a leadership position with River Network, furthering its mission, before returning to her roots as Founder of Communities of Love In Action (C.O.L.I.A.), a recipient of the Flow Fund Award, continuing to cement her dedication to Trust-Based Philanthropy and community-driven change.