What Comes Next? Early Stage Reflections from TBP’s Senior Fellow

By Pia Infante

Earlier this year, I happily took on the role of Senior Fellow with the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project – driven by a sense that there was unfinished business from my previous role co-directing The Whitman Institute.  These six months or so later, I have a slightly different purview.  I’m energized by what is unfolding and not quite yet visible in the coming year.  I continue to be motivated by the aspiration to shift philanthropy to be better and more accountable partners to our nonprofit partners and social movements.

There are a handful of explorations through the fellowship that I very much look forward to in the coming year:

Supporting Organizations to “Walk the Talk”  

One longtime pet peeve in my eight or so years of working as a funder and donor organizer is the unsavory, unethical gap between rhetoric and action.  When inscriptions of equity and justice are heralded by an institution, I look for how that translates into the lived experience of those with the least power internally and externally. How does the system treat its people? How do applicants and grantee partners experience the different touchpoints?  How does leadership lead and shape culture?  

That said, it is not simple or easy to ensure that an institution expresses its values at every interface.  In my first six months as senior fellow, I’ve had the privilege of walking with changemakers to implement more equitable and trust-based structures and practices.  It has been humbling to support passionate and powerful leaders who are working on shifting their organizational cultures to reinforce values of trust, collaboration, and equity.  I have been struck by the dedication and commitment of these individuals, while being reminded that organizational change is messy and requires patience.  I’ll continue to support leaders and organizations to embody their values, and will help circulate hard-fought lessons of organizational and structural change – to the greater trust-based philanthropy network.

Expanding Values-Driven TBP Advising 

Another emergence, and one that has steadily grown in the Project’s three-year lifespan, is that philanthropies of all sorts are seeking skilled, experienced practitioners to walk with them on their change journey.  Our newly expanded steering committee and practitioner-advocates we call champions are predominantly composed of foundation leaders with full-time leadership roles.  So, while many are making themselves available to advise foundations, their time is limited. 

At the same time, we have witnessed the emergence of consultants and vendors who are offering their services to foundations seeking to operationalize trust-based philanthropy.  Since the Project is not always involved in those engagements, we cannot necessarily speak to whether or not values of equity and power-consciousness are upheld across the four essential dimensions of an organization’s work (culture, structures, leadership, and practices). In 2023, I’ll be working to bridge the gap between demand and supply of vetted practitioners.  This may take a few different forms.  I’m eager to apply my organizational development and coaching experience more directly towards ensuring that our peers embroiled in change efforts have a larger, stronger, vetted pool of advisors to support trust-based implementation efforts.

Back to the Future Scenarios

Another key aspect of the fellowship will be focused on actively imagining what the next chapter of this movement will look like.  How do we seed and resource the expansive network of practitioners and institutions leaning into transformative change?  What kinds of organizational vehicles or platforms are critical for the next chapter of trust-based philanthropy?  How do we draw on the cumulative learning to date?  What elements of the current Project might carry forward into another form?

Building on the organizational support and advising that we are conducting in the coming year, it is likely that the next chapter will include a semi-formalized structure to help foundations operationalize trust-based philanthropy.  It is important that this is deeply informed by our values, the four dimensions, and lessons from the organizational change support we are exploring via the fellowship. Given the nuances of this work, we also feel that it will be important for this work to be led by those who have lived experience leading their own organizations through trust-based transformation.

Meanwhile, our peers are requesting more case studies with concrete steps of how philanthropies are actually changing their culture, leadership, structures, and practices.  Some such stories are warehoused in the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project’s story map, others on the blog, and often shared via our social media channels. For this work to sustain into the future, we imagine it will be important to have a platform to both capture and amplify more detailed stories of transformation in the future. We’ll seed this work in the next two years by developing comprehensive case studies that dive deep into the conditions that make seismic shifts possible – both individually and institutionally. 

Looking back on 2022 and towards 2023, I continue to feel deeply honored to be at the nexus of purposeful work about shifting power, embodying equity, and culture change in philanthropy.  Two years seems like both a long time, and an unfathomably short time.  I trust that in partnership with the incredible Trust-Based Philanthropy Project team, steering committee, and our many champions for equity and trust that we can truly support leaders, organizations, and the wider sector to embody a more collaborative and accountable philanthropy.  I so appreciate you all being on this journey with us – often leading the way and taking risks so we can follow and learn.  I look forward to all the ways we will continue on.  Together.  Abrazos y adelante!

Pia Infante is the Senior Fellow at the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project