Endowments are often lacking for social change nonprofits—even more so for Black-led organizations. By closing this gap, we could radically transform how we confront society’s most pressing issues.
Open-access to this article made possible by The Bridgespan Group.
Championing initiatives is not enough. Philanthropy must fund their implementation and build power in communities to keep the ball moving.
Optimizing the path from funder to fundee isn’t something philanthropy has thought about systematically, but the sector should take this moment to build some muscle into it, with an eye toward racial and economic justice.
Trust-based philanthropy is becoming an increasingly well-defined approach for addressing the power imbalance in the nonprofit sector and closing the gap between funders and grantees. How does a trust-based approach to giving compare to a strategic one? To help us explore the characteristics of both, SSIR publisher Michael Voss speaks with Julia Reed of Schwab Charitable, Philip Li of the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, and Nadia Roumani, cofounder of the Effective Philanthropy Learning Initiative at PACS. A sponsored podcast developed with the support of DAFgiving360.
Building better relationships between funders and nonprofits, and investing in capacity, will mean more resilient organizations and more impact.
Our understanding of community can help funders and evaluators identify, understand, and strengthen the communities they work with.
Too many people believe social value is objective, fixed, and stable, when in fact it is subjective, malleable, and variable.
These leaders’ assets go beyond experiences of oppression or marginalization to include the connection, meaning, and joy they can draw on from their respective cultures and communities.
A few nonprofits are using social media to fundamentally change the way they work and increase their social impact.
A clear definition of equity would seem paramount to galvanizing philanthropy into action around this increasingly used term—but the field is only beginning to explore what it really means.
