Introducing The Ethos of Being Trust-Based
The Trust-Based Philanthropy Project, Philanthropy California, and Grantmakers for Effective Organizations are excited to announce a new five-part webinar series: The Ethos of Being Trust-Based.
The series is now complete, but all session descriptions and recordings are available below.
Series Overview:
The Ethos of Being Trust-Based, developed by Trust-Based Philanthropy Project, Philanthropy CA, and Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, is a webinar series dedicated to exploring the fundamental values and dispositions central to a trust-based approach. At the heart of this work is a deep focus on building trust and relationships at every level, both internally and externally. This requires constant self-examination, a cultivation of interpersonal skills, a willingness to reimagine and adjust organizational practices, and an understanding of the greater systemic factors that have given way to the institution of philanthropy as a whole. It requires that we see and name how racial inequities have been perpetuated in our institutions, behaviors, and practices, even as we strive to alleviate them. Trust-based philanthropy invites us to understand and take action on these ideas at the personal, interpersonal, organizational, and systemic levels in order to interrupt the perpetuation of power imbalances in our sector.
Between the global pandemic and this country’s racial reckoning, our interconnectedness, and inequalities, have never been clearer. From this reality, how can we cultivate trust-based dispositions that support mutuality throughout crisis response, and beyond?
How can we seize the potential for redistribution of power, especially to benefit communities that have been systematically oppressed?
How might we fully embody partnership in a spirit of service?
What context is essential for us to understand?
What behaviors do we need to un-learn?
And can we embrace and sustain self-reflection and generative listening as must-have tools for transformation?
Join the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project, Philanthropy California, and GEO as we explore these questions and examine the aspects of trust-building essential for a strong and healthy ecosystem at all levels: individually, interpersonally, inter-organizationally, and systemically. Each webinar will: 1) feature seasoned perspectives on some of the overarching concepts related to trust-based values and dispositions; 2) include stories and lessons from funders who try to live and breathe relational values; and, 3) offer space for small group reflection on how to cultivate what’s required to embed a trust-based ethos in our philanthropic practice.
SESSION #1: PERMISSION TO PAUSE: YOU HAVE TO GO SLOWLY TO GO FAR
Tuesday, December 8, 2020, 10-11:30am PT
The work we do in philanthropy—and the work of our nonprofit partners—is not immune to the complexities and chaos of a changing world. Amidst a global pandemic, threats to our democracy, and environmental devastation, we are pushed to be hyperproductive problem-solvers. While these tendencies are brought to bear “in the heat of the moment,” they’re limiting over the long-term, especially when strategic thinking and attuned sensitivities are needed. We cultivate the latter by slowing down, stilling our minds, getting in touch with signals from our body, and allowing the resulting data to inform our action. Beneath our professional titles and roles, trust-based philanthropy acknowledges that we are one piece of a longer arc of time and a larger ecosystem, and that sometimes, we have to go slowly if we want to go far. In this session, we’ll:
Explore diverse reflective practices that support us to slow down;
Learn how to clearly see and check in with our intention and motivation before acting;
Understand how habitual ways of responding, sometimes rooted in our own trauma, can sometimes sabotage authentic relationship and trust-building;
Learn strategies for moving from habitual response into choice; and,
Explore ways funders can support grantee partners and colleagues in cultivating these skills.
SESSION #2: INTERPERSONAL SKILLS: THE HARDEST SKILL BUILDING YOU’LL EVER DO
Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2021, 10-11:30am PT
In philanthropy, we sometimes overlook or deprioritize the interpersonal skills required to do this work well. This includes the ability to connect dots, show up in an emotionally intelligent way, listen actively and empathically sensitively, and know when to get out of the way. It also requires a clear understanding of power, and how power imbalances between funders and grantee partners are exacerbated by race, gender, and class inequities. Cultivating and advancing effective interpersonal skills requires practitioners to bring self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and willingness to take multiple perspectives into account. In this workshop, we’ll:
Explore practices to cultivate embodied listening
Explore practices that help to cultivate empathy and compassion
Build self-awareness around power, privilege, and navigating across differences, including addressing implicit bias
Explore practices around transparent communication and managing discomfort
SESSION #3: BUILDING TRUST BEGINS AT HOME: PRACTICES THAT ADVANCE OR WEAKEN TRUST IN YOUR ORGANIZATION
Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021, 10-11:30am PT
A trust-based culture—one that prioritizes power-sharing, dialogue, transparency, and learning—is essential to cultivating relationships of trust within organizations. Simply put, being a trust-based organization requires there to be trust within your organization—among staff, between staff and board, and between the board and the CEO. When this trust is broken, or if it is never built to begin with, it can seep into the external aspects of your work with the potential of threatening your relationships, credibility, and reputation. In this session, we will:
Work with tools for building and sustaining trust internally
Learn to recognize and prevent microaggressions and macroaggressions that undermine trust-building
Understand ways to build and sustain internal dialogue, understanding, and transparency to equip your organization for navigating the discomfort and breaches in trust that may occur within your organization.
SESSION #4: CONFRONTING AND CORRECTING HISTORICAL POWER IMBALANCES
Tuesday, Mar 30, 2021, 10-11:30am PT
Trust-based philanthropy is anchored in an understanding of power and privilege, historical and systemic racism and structural oppression, and how these shape people’s realities in profoundly different ways. As grantmakers, we have a responsibility to confront the reality that philanthropy originated from and has often contributed to systemic inequities, both in the ways wealth is accumulated and its dissemination is controlled. While these discussions may be challenging and difficult, this type of self-reflection is fundamental to the work of trust-based philanthropy. As individuals and institutions, we must be willing to recognize historical trauma and systemic power, examine our own relationship to power and money, and be willing to give up some of that power and control in a spirit of service and collaboration with those who are closer to the issues at hand. In this session, we will:
Review some of the salient historical and systemic factors that have contributed to inequity in philanthropy
Help participants recognize examples of the pervasive and lingering effects of historical systemic inequity in our grantmaking culture and practices
Discuss strategies and tactics that grantmaking practitioners can deploy in order to proactively address power inequities on an interpersonal, organizational, and systemic level
SESSION #5: REIMAGINING FUNDER ROLES IN A TRUST-BASED CONTEXT
Tuesday, Apr. 27, 2021, 10-11:30am PT
Trust-based philanthropy encourages us to rethink our notions of traditional philanthropic roles, which tend to prioritize transactions over relationships. In fact, a trust-based approach encourages us to understand our roles as partners working in service of nonprofits and communities. Traditional Philanthropy has institutionalized and perpetuated harmful tropes about funders as experts and nonprofits as needy people who need to be held accountable. This has been perpetuated institutionally through our grantmaking practices, but also in less obvious ways, such as job descriptions, theories of change, program descriptions, and the language we use to describe our work. In this session, we will:
Identify how to recognize these tropes when they’re present in our work
Explore strategies to intentionally name and undo them
Reimagine various aspects of our work in which we can set the stage for more authentic relationships, i.e., those rooted in values of power-sharing and genuine collaboration
Learn strategies for applying a more collaborative, partner-oriented approach