In the nonprofit sector, the people doing the most essential community work are often the least resourced to sustain it. Staff carry enormous weight, often without dedicated support for their own well-being. The Lark Awards program was created to help change that, providing one-time $30,000 grants to small, community-rooted Los Angeles organizations specifically for collective care and staff renewal.
As our third cohort of Lark Award grantee partners completes their grant cycle (Grant Period: January-December 2025), we’re sharing the experiences and insights that emerged from their closing letters. Across nineteen organizations, some striking similarities and meaningful differences reveal both the universality of the need for collective care and the wonderfully varied ways it can come to life.
What Organizations Had in Common
Well-being is not one-size-fits-all
Perhaps the most consistent thread across all nineteen letters was the intentional choice to honor individual differences in what restoration looks like. Every organization agreed to divide the grant between shared group experiences and individual stipends/personal allowances. Staff used their individual funds for an enormous range of things: therapy and massage, international travel, gym memberships, cooking kits, guitar lessons, scuba diving, paying off utility bills, covering immigration filing fees, and even Duolingo subscriptions to reconnect with cultural heritage. One organization noted plainly that “wellness is not one-size-fits-all, and sometimes paying rent releases the financial burden.” Another described the experience of individual autonomy as “powerful – to have the ability to make the decision for yourself.”
At the same time, every organization also invested in shared experiences, recognizing that something irreplaceable happens when people are simply together outside the demands of work. Staff retreats, shared meals, spa days, holiday gatherings, and group outings showed up in nearly every letter as key moments of connection and renewal.
The process of deciding mattered as much as the activities themselves
Across organizations, how funds were allocated proved just as meaningful as what they were spent on. Most organizations formed well-being committees, held staff meetings, or used surveys and voting to give everyone a voice. Multiple letters noted that this participatory approach, sometimes messy, sometimes requiring multiple rounds of discussion, made staff feel genuinely heard and valued. One organization, reflecting on a hiccup in their process, offered a lesson worth passing forward: be explicit that staff can propose their own options, not just choose from a predetermined list. Another described the planning process itself as “an act of team building.”
Retreats were consistently transformative
Whether a three-day trip to Joshua Tree, a weekend in Lake Arrowhead, an overnight at Zion National Park, a stay in Santa Barbara, or a multiday retreat in Big Bear, retreats emerged as high-impact experiences across the board. Organizations described them as rare opportunities to be fully present with one another, without laptops, crisis-response mode, or the usual pace of work. Staff returned more connected, more trusting, and more grounded. One executive director described having to convince staff to actually block their calendars and commit to not working, and then watching the sky not fall. “The work was still there when we got back,” they wrote, “but the work was in fact able to wait while we prioritized our wellbeing.”
The Lark Award gave organizations both resources and permission
A theme that appeared across many letters was the idea of permission. Organizations described the grant as providing not just funding, but an explicit signal that rest and collective care are legitimate organizational priorities, not indulgences. One staff member wrote, “This was the first time a funder invested in us, not just our deliverables.” Another noted that having dedicated resources gave them “both the resources and the permission to pause.” For many organizations, having a funder affirm that care matters helped shift something cultural that they had been working toward on their own.
Care rippled outward
Several organizations drew explicit connections between investing in staff and their capacity to serve communities. Organizations doing deeply trauma-informed work described how having space and resources for their own restoration helped staff show up more fully for the people who depend on them. One leader put it plainly: “Caring for staff is not separate from our mission; it is how the mission survives.” Others described incorporating well-being practices into their youth and community programming, modeling for the people they serve that rest is not a luxury but a necessity.
What Differed Across Organizations
The political context shaped the urgency and meaning of care
This cohort operated during an exceptionally turbulent time, one appears to be the new normal. The year covered by this grant period included a presidential transition, intensified immigration enforcement, threats to LGBTQ rights and protections, and escalating pressure on social justice organizations and their communities. For some grantees, collective care was not merely a well-being initiative but an act of survival and political resistance. Organizations described naming trauma collectively, framing rest as strategic, and working through internalized beliefs that rest must be earned through overwork. “In times of crisis, tending to our own healing is an act of resistance,” one staff member wrote. For organizations whose work wasn’t as directly tied to the current political moment, the award was a welcome opportunity to build something they’d been wanting to prioritize: a stronger culture of care, more sustainable day-to-day practices, and time to breathe.
The LA fires hit some organizations directly
For at least two organizations in this cohort, the January 2025 fires were not a distant backdrop but a lived crisis. Staff lost their homes. Art supplies and decades of community artwork were destroyed. One organization reflected that they were not sure they would have weathered the fires as well as they did without the collective care practices already being built. “There is no way we could have seen the events of January 7th and 8th coming when we received [the award],” they wrote, “and the timing could not have been more perfect.” For these organizations, collective care shifted from something they were building intentionally over time into something their teams were actively leaning on.
Some organizations went deep on healing modalities; others kept it practical
The range of approaches was striking. Some organizations worked with healing practitioners offering sound baths, somatic practices, ritual, art as therapy, and culturally grounded well-being specifically designed for organizers navigating racial trauma and burnout. Others took a more straightforward approach, turning to holiday gatherings, year-end bonuses, additional paid days off, and improvements to shared staff spaces. Both yielded genuine impact. One organization made clear that collective care “does not need to be elaborate to be meaningful; sincerity and follow-through matter deeply.”
For fully remote teams, the stakes of connection were especially high
Several organizations in this cohort operate with fully or largely remote staff, and for them the stakes of gathering felt especially high. Team retreat brought full teams together in person for the very first time. One staff member described the greatest impact as ‘seeing the true person behind the work persona,’ a shift that carried into everyday collaboration long after the retreat ended. Another described one-on-one staff lunches as revelatory. Remote work can make it easier to miss how isolated people feel, especially when the work itself is already emotionally heavy. These organizations were using collective care to close that gap.
Some organizations made infrastructure investments that will last
A handful of organizations used a portion of their funds to create physical or structural supports for ongoing well-being: a massage chair in the office, a renovated quiet room for rest and reflection, a well-being benefit percentage built into hourly rates to sustain future programming, and, in one case, monthly “Wellness Immersions” now built into the organizational calendar. These investments reflect a longer-term vision of care as a consistent part of how an organization operates, not just a one-time event. For several of these organizations, the grant didn’t plant a new idea so much as it gave them the resources to act on one they had been sitting with for a while.
The relationship between individual and collective care was a real tension
While the hybrid model was universal, the balance between individual and collective care was a genuine site of reflection and, in some cases, difficulty. Some staff preferred to decompress on their own rather than engage in group activities. Some organizations grappled with staff feeling guilty about receiving well-being funding at all, a real paradox when “wellness is a privilege, not a right” in this country, as one organization put it. These tensions are not problems to be solved so much as honest realities of this work, and several organizations named them with refreshing candor.
How This Cohort Compares to the One Before
Each year, we learn something new from our grantees. Looking back at our second cohort’s letters alongside this third cohort’s, some differences stand out, though we plan to explore them more fully in a separate piece.
One important caveat first: the second cohort was not asked directly about the political or social climate of their year, while the third cohort was. So some of what looks different may simply reflect what organizations were asked to write about. With that said, reading the letters side by side, the emotional weight in this cohort feels heavier. The second cohort’s letters are largely celebratory. The third cohort carries more grief, more urgency, and a more explicit connection between the state of the world and the need for care. Financial stress also surfaces more visibly as a well-being need in this cohort, with staff describing how they used individual funds to cover rent, utility bills, and daily necessities in ways that weren’t as present before. And for several organizations, care had taken on a new framing altogether — not just as restoration, but as resistance.
We’ll dig into what all of that means in an upcoming post.
What This Cohort Taught Us
Taken together, these letters point to something important: the conditions under which nonprofit staff operate have intensified, and so has the need for intentional, resourced, ongoing care. Many of these organizations serve communities that are directly in the crosshairs of current political forces, and the staff doing that work are absorbing that weight every day.
What stood out across this cohort was how organizations used this dedicated time and funding to deepen something they were already working toward – a shift in how they understand the relationship between caring for their people and advancing their missions. Across sixteen organizations, we heard versions of the same realization: these are not in tension. They are the same thing.
For future Lark grantees, the organizations that have gone before you offer this collective wisdom: start the conversation about care early and include everyone in it. Let staff define well-being for themselves. Be honest about the paradox of receiving resources for rest in a sector that often treats exhaustion as proof of commitment. Plan for how you’ll sustain the practices after the grant ends. And more than one organization mentioned this with evident delight: do not underestimate the power of food.
The Lark Awards are a program of the Durfee Foundation, supporting collective care and staff renewal at small, community-rooted Los Angeles nonprofits. For more information, visit durfee.org.