Forest for the Trees: Collective Accountability and Trust as Groundwork for Systems Change

In this article for the Foundation Review's 2024 Issue on Democracy, Equity, and Power, Shaady Salehi and Pia Infante unpack the meaning of accountability in a trust-based philanthropy context. Rather than the one-way transactional accountability of conventional philanthropy, trust-based philanthropy fosters relational accountability—where reciprocity and trust drive the funder-grantee relationship—as well as collective accountability to the communities being served. This orientation, they argue, is the key to advancing complex systems change. 

Through insights, analysis, and stories from social-sector leaders, this article argues that philanthropy is inherently more strategic and effective when funders embrace trust-based practices and collaborate with nonprofits with a spirit of collective accountability. It also provides concrete examples of systems change that has been possible as a result of trust-based philanthropic partnerships rooted in relational and collective accountability. 

This work is licensed by The Foundation Review under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.