How do I get involved with the Project? →

Whatever your role and wherever you are in your trust-based journey, we welcome your partnership. The bigger the chorus in support of trust-based philanthropy, the closer we’ll get to making this the norm. Check out our get involved page to see how we can collaborate.

What peer learning opportunities do you offer for funders? →

Virtually all of our webinars and other programming are designed to foster funder-to-funder peer-learning, so please check out our events page to see what’s coming up. These sessions are often led by funder peers sharing their personal stories and lessons learned, and typically create space for participants to share their insights from their own practice and/or questions about how to apply or deepen the trust-based principles.

In addition to this, we are actively exploring partnerships with regional associations and other philanthropic serving organizations to support peer cohorts. We are currently piloting a few formats, and invite PSOs to contact us if you are interested in co-developing a peer network or cohort. If you are a funder interested in jumpstarting a peer learning network in your region or issue area, please contact us and we can explore the possibilities together.

How do you work with other philanthropic serving organizations (PSOs)? →

Partnerships with PSOs are critical to our goals of making trust-based practices the norm. We are a small team, and fully recognize that we could never change the entire sector on our own. Critically, we know our work will only be successful if it can be embedded within existing networks and spaces where funder organizing happens, so it is a priority for us to collaborate with partners and co-build programming that is responsive to each network’s membership.

A large part of our work is focused on collaborating with regional associations to develop custom programming for their membership. Right now, this mostly takes the form of resources, webinars, and speaking engagements, but we are open to exploring ways to develop deeper programming such as peer cohorts, webinar series, and other deep dives into the nuts and bolts of trust-based philanthropy. If you are a representative of a PSO or regional association and would like to explore opportunities for collaboration, please contact us.

Do you offer consulting services, or can you suggest other consultants who can help my foundation embrace a trust-based approach? →

The Trust-Based Philanthropy Project is not a formal consulting entity, but our steering committee is available to help you figure out your next steps in starting or deepening your trust-based journey. You can start by filling out our self assessment tool to get a sense of where you may need to focus your attention. Depending on your unique needs, we can pair you with a trust-based peer who can offer you some insights and suggestions in support of your journey, we can offer a trust-based leader to come present to your staff and board, and/or recommend consultants that can support you in institutionalizing specific trust-based practices.

Why is this a 5 year project? What happens after 5 years? →

We decided to build this as a limited-term project for a number of reasons. First and foremost, we recognize that there are a number of excellent initiatives and affinity groups in philanthropy that are already doing a lot of great work, and we’re not here to reinvent the wheel or compete with those efforts. Our goal is to create tools, conversations, and programming that can augment existing conversations toward a deeper understanding and embrace of equity, power-sharing, and effective practice. Our hope is that at the end of this five-year initiative, we will have built the awareness, tools, and connections necessary for individual, institutional, and sector-wide transformation.

Do you work with nonprofits/grantees? →

This work seeks to ultimately create a more equitable nonprofit-funder ecosystem. The Project’s entry point into this work is primarily through funder engagement. Our friends at Community-Centric Fundraising are doing amazing work with nonprofits, and we encourage you to check them out!

Do you offer tools for nonprofits who want to start a dialogue with their current funders and donors to embrace a trust-based approach? →

While we don’t currently have resources for this specific purpose, we do encourage everyone who is starting out on this journey to explore our website, sign up for our newsletter, and download our Trust-Based Philanthropy overview. This can be a good starting point for dialogue with your funders. You may also point your funders toward the self-reflection tool, which can also be a good internal conversation starter.

Do you provide funding, or make funder introductions, for nonprofits? →

We are not a grantmaking organization, and do not have the capacity to connect nonprofits with potential funders. That said, we frequently showcase stories of trust-based funders on our website and via our social media, so that is a great way to learn about trust-based foundations if you're looking to find new connections.

Some foundations have practiced in a trust-based way for decades. Why name and promote this approach now? →

We recognize a lot of these practices aren’t necessarily new. But by naming and framing these practices, we’re seeing the outsized impact that this community of values-aligned funders is having, and broader reach in bringing in those who may be newer to the practice. This unifying frame has given us a chance to invite many different funders into dialogue about shared strategies and approaches, and it has also opened the door for collective peer learning and reflection. We believe having a shared language around this type of practice will ultimately help us achieve our goal of making these practices the norm in our sector.

How many principles must a foundation practice in order to be considered “trust-based”? →

Being trust-based starts with your values and culture. It means embodying values of equity, humility, transparency, curiosity, and collaboration at your organization—both in what you do, and how you do it. Trust-based leaders embody these values by being self-reflective, acknowledging power, and remaining committed to alleviating power imbalances. It also means investing time in cultivating and maintaining power-aware relationships internally (at the staff, leadership, and board levels) as well as externally (with grantee partners and in community). The six principles are simply an articulation of how these values can manifest in your grantmaking practices. You can be trust-based and only practice a few principles, and you can also practice all the principles without embodying trust-based values.

Can I as an individual still embrace trust-based philanthropy if I’m not in a decision-making role at my organization? →

If you are in a role that involves interacting with grantees, you can always reflect on how you can personally be more responsive and transparent, how you can show up in a way that is approachable and relational (rather than transactional), and how you can work within the limitations of your role to be more supportive and power-aware. Talk to your colleagues about the trust-based principles, and discuss how they might be able to embrace some of the practices. If you want to advance institutional changes toward a trust-based approach, share the trust-based philanthropy overview (and maybe even these FAQs!) with your organization’s leadership to see if they might be open to examining the organization’s practices with a trust-based lens.

Can a relational approach work for larger organizations? →

Trust-based practices can be implemented at any organization, regardless of size. The first step of embracing a trust-based approach is to examine your organizational systems and culture with a values-based lens of trust, equity, and transparency. Once there is a commitment to embrace those values organization-wide, you can take the necessary steps to operationalize trust-based practices. While this process may take longer for larger organizations with multiple departments and larger staff sizes, change is possible as long as there is organization-wide clarity on values and how a trust-based approach supports those values.

Is trust-based philanthropy just about funding leaders and organizations with whom you have "chemistry”? →

Trust should not be conflated with likability or friendship. Rather than focusing on clicking personally with potential grantee partners, think of it as trust for action: a belief that the organization can achieve its goals and get things done, and that it will be accountable and trustworthy to the community it serves. Trust-based funders often have to communicate tough decisions, and do so transparently and with care. Establishing clear values and defined criteria can help guide values- and mission-aligned decision-making. It is also important to make sure your vetting processes include diverse perspectives—among your referral sources as well as the staff who are doing the research—to allow for greater exposure to groups and individuals you may not come across otherwise.

How do you measure impact in a trust-based context? →

Whereas in traditional frameworks, funders define impact goals for grantees to live up to, trust-based philanthropy recognizes that grantee partners are the ones who are best-suited to define and assess their own success.

So what does this more expansive understanding of impact mean for foundations for whom impact assessment is a priority? It starts with focusing on nonprofits’ self-defined measures, and exploring impact with a lens of curiosity and openness. Asking questions that promote self-reflection, such as, What successes and challenges did you experience? What have you learned, and how might that inform your work moving forward? can lead to a better understanding for both grantees and funders of current needs and what funders can do to better support nonprofits in achieving their goals.

Another way to consider impact is to turn the lens away from grantees and onto your own organization: How well are you meeting your goals as a foundation? How well are you serving your grantee partners? How much do your grantee partners trust you? How can you do your work differently or better?