Transcript: Making the Case for Trust-Based Philanthropy

Shaady Salehi: We've got a fabulous set of speakers. We've got Phil Li, the President and CEO of the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation; Brenda Solarzano, CEO of the Headwaters Foundation in Montana; Pia Infante, Co-Executive Director of the Whitman Institute; and our special guests, Marcus Walton, President and CEO of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, also known as GEO.

Just a refresher on what we're talking about with trust-based philanthropy. It's all about freeing up nonprofits so that they can focus on their work, on their mission, and about building mutually beneficial relationships and partnerships. We have seen many funders, including many of you on this call today, have begun to take steps that really embody a trust-based approach in order to be more responsive to nonprofit and community needs.

We're going to start today's discussion with a big question. What are the other aspects of a trust-based approach that we really need to work on right now and continue to make the case for?

Pia Infante: As we've been learning, we don't actually hold ourselves to be some kind of perfect model. This intersection of all these pandemics continue to highlight for us the connection between trust-based philanthropy and racial equity work. I used to be an organizational development consultant, and I would always turn down work where the people said, “we have dedicated two hours of a lunch-and-learn to do DEI and we would like you to come do it.” So I used to say, “Why is your DEI budget and time the size of a grain of rice and your strategy work is buckets and buckets and buckets?”

And so the same here that you can count it in some ways, when you look very swiftly at trust-based philanthropy, it looks like, ‘Oh, okay, these are just a set of protocols or measures to do better grantmaking or more effective grant making.’

Even before this 2020 year, we had already been thinking and talking about trust-based philanthropy as basically a change effort within organizations that lives hand in hand with a lot of change efforts that are centered on racial equity.

I'll just end by saying it's impossible to be in this country right now and not think about race. Maybe depending on where, who, and what we listen to, we're thinking about race differently. But for us, the values of being accountable and listening to our nonprofit and community partners and really honoring the experience of what it is like for our Black and Brown communities, undocumented communities, the levels of violence and unemployment and all the markers of oppression are being lived. And I think that in order to honor that, to be accountable to that lived experience, we must integrate a racial justice or racial equity perspective to everything that we do as individual leaders and as institutions.

Shaady Salehi: Thank you so much. Thank you for acknowledging some of these greater pieces that go beyond the principles, and are core trust-based values. I'm going to turn next to you, Phil Li from the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation. So now that the case is already being made for the practices and principles, what are some other aspects of a trust-based approach that you see as important to highlight as part of this building buy-in discussion?

Phil Li: Hi, everybody. Nice to be with you. I think trust-based philanthropy offers an opportunity in a way that other approaches don't. With this notion of a multiyear, unrestricted type of grantmaking, it engages us in a different kind of relationship. And also, it frees up our grantee partners to think about the work that they're doing in different ways. I think one of the biggest things that comes from that is this notion to think about a bigger picture, or to be experimental, to put on a hat that might be viewed as thinking about systems change, and the kind of work can be done when you have that freedom, or you have the ability to know that you are securing some funding to do that work. And so I think that's one of the big things and big opportunities that comes with that. I really do look at philanthropic dollars as the risk capital of the sector. It's where government can't go and corporations often choose not to. But this is a chance for our grantee partners to try out things that they think are possible ways to solve seemingly intractable problems.

So maybe we can be counsel or a sounding board or even providing some of the frameworks and big pictures that we see as funders. Trust-based opens that door to experimentation that can lead to different ways of approaching systems change.

Shaady Salehi: Thank you, Phil. I love that. Brenda, what comes up for you? What are some of the other areas that we need to work more on in the sector?

Brenda Solarzano: Good morning, everyone. I'm really delighted to be with you here today to talk about this change effort. And when we think about change effort, we need to think about what is the leadership that is required to lead a change effort. That's a big component of trust-based philanthropy. Sometimes folks want to get into the very practical stuff, without really pausing and asking what's the change effort, and what's my role in leading that change effort.

I had spent 17 years in philanthropy, and I almost left philanthropy because I felt like we were getting in the way of real change. I felt like this might not be the space in which I could play my best role in being part of something positive. Then I got to come to Headwaters and really be in a very different space of saying, how can we reinvent the business model of philanthropy, and go from a top down approach to one that really truly centers community in the leadership position?

So leadership for me is a critical component. One of the things I would ask everyone to ponder is, what leadership role are you playing within your organization, and within the field of philanthropy, to drive this change that is embodied by trust-based philanthropy?

Shaady Salehi: Thank you, Brenda. I would love to hear from you Marcus. As the leader of a large organization that organizes a lot of foundations across the country, you've got a bird's eye view on what's happening. What are these other aspects of a trust-based approach that we really need to continue to make the case for?

Marcus Walton: Thank you. I do get so much gratification from being a part of these conversations. I really appreciate this personally and as a representative of GEO.

There's a way in which when we talk about culture, the first thing that comes to mind for me is the extent to which we are not in this alone. It's not about me, Marcus, and however much experience and knowledge I may believe I've accumulated over the years. Instead, this is about us coming together, learning alongside each other, and really cultivating the wisdom of our collective genes. This is our shared power. And I love to use the idea of shared power here, our shared genius. This is not a status quo experience, not a navigation as much as it is a transformation exercise. This is about leadership, a vision for the sector that we now have an opportunity to be intentional about defining together.

So as a representative of this broader community of grantmakers, the invitation for me is to consider: what is our aspirational vision for the sector, and how does trust-based philanthropy help us arrive at a set of common agendas that allow us to bring our best to the world?

There's a way in which we might consider how we cultivate and build power in those spaces where it is lacking, where it might contribute to a more powerful impact. Speaking on behalf of those whose access to platforms may not be as visible or who are not as directly connected to power sources, I invite us all to consider the different ways in which we might think and talk about ceding power. How do we think about the generations that we will be impacting ahead and how our decisions now can contribute to the kinds of impact that results in thriving communities?

Shaady Salehi: Thank you so much, Marcus. It's really encouraging to think about it that way. It's inspiring to think about our work in this way. This is a real opportunity for a collective imagining. So when we're saying ceding power, we often refer to the C-E-D-E of ceding power. That can be a bit of a sticking point for some audiences that feels it's a challenging way to enter into the discussion when we're talking about giving up some power and giving some power to others.

What are some alternate ways of thinking about and talking about ceding power? How do you embody this kind of sharing power, building collective power in your work?

Brenda Solarzano: This brings me back to the notion around leadership playing a role. When I've been doing this work I often have to remind myself that yes, I'm a leader, but my job is to build leadership and capacity in others. Your role as a leader is to create opportunities for those who have not been at the table to have a say in how you define what the work is, and how the work should look and move forward.

That requires my staff to let go of them being the ones that are there to dictate. I think with the board, it has really required a conversation of, if the board is not going to be in the position of making decisions on everything, then what is the purpose and value-add of the board and what is their leadership role? If you don't answer that question, that's when you get into trouble.

And that's a challenging conversation for a board. Often, board members joined foundation boards because they believe that they are going to get to be the ones that say who's going to receive funding and what the work is going to be. If you shift that, then you've got to fill it in with some other way for them to lead.

Does it mean to lead in your communities so that you can play a role as a trustee asking the hard questions that need to be asked about change efforts that need to happen? I think for me, personally, my job doesn't just mean I stay within the walls of the foundation here at Headwaters, or that I stay within the geographic boundaries of Montana. My job is to be part of this learning community and figure out how I can share what I'm doing, how I can learn from others, and how I can play a leadership role in changing the practices that have been standard in philanthropy.

Shaady Salehi: Thank you so much for that, Brenda, thank you for modeling what it looks like to be a humble and trust-based leader. The role of the board, I know that's probably coming up for many of you as you're having discussions with your colleagues and your board members around challenging some of the assumptions of the board's role.

When we talk about this idea of leadership and building collective power, what comes up for you and what are some ways that we can rethink what our roles are in the sector?

Pia Infante: So the Whitman Institute is spending out. We are closing our doors within the next two years. We see our spend out as a trust-based spend out in which we've listened to our partners. We've at this point transferred most of the wealth out to our long-term nonprofit and movement partners. And we've acknowledged that maybe the best contribution we could make is to help other folks give up the notion that our institutions have to exist forever.

And the other one is much more personal and interpersonal. Very rarely do we think it's “me”, that I have to give up power, especially if we're not the president, the CEO or a trustee. But in these complex changw engagements around moving towards trust-based philanthropy, I've noticed also that sometimes program officers or program directors or operation staff or finance or legal teams have a difficult time reconceptualizing their role.

Just as we want trustees to reconceptualize their role, every other role also has to be reconceptualized and reimagined, from grants management to legal and finance. I think that sometimes we have this sense that it's “them” that must give up power. But we can all take a moment to reflect on the sphere of influence that we actually have and the decisions that are on our plate. How do we go about that work? Is it collaborative as a collective? Do we take feedback? Whose feedback do we listen to? Are we willing to be counter-cultural in our organization, if our organization isn't trust-based or isn't trying to move towards racial equity or thinks that they are, but we're going in circles?

I think that we need to remove the sensibility that there's some kind of perfect destination, there's some kind of point at which me and my organization will get an A+ and we'll be done, but rather know that we will all need to be constantly evolving. So the institutional strategic decisions are one area and then kind of individually how we hold personal power and decisions.

So often what happens is an organization almost mimics a family. The leadership is like the parents, and the staff is sort of like either the rowdy kids or the compliant kids. Sometimes when we're not in those leadership roles, we don't see ourselves as folks who have something to give up or something to reconsider or something to reconfigure.

What are we accountable to? Is it the mission? Our values and our constituents? Or are we accountable to the endowment and the notion that our job is to preserve it and protect the money, versus to support and to listen to the people?

Shaady Salehi: Thank you, Pia, there's so much good stuff in there. Phil, I'd love to turn to you. What's coming up for you as you think about challenging traditional notions of leadership roles? How does this show up in your work, and what is some of the work that you continue to do to embed trust-based values in the work of Robert Sterling Clark?

Phil Li: The easy part is to think about the grant making side and the six principles like ‘Oh, we do all six of those, so we're trust-based.’ I would actually invite us to think differently about that and just flip it on its head, which is that because you are trust-based, you come into it with this kind of value system. You do those things and you do those actions as a result of having a particular kind of mindset or approach to engaging with grantee partners, our own staff, and with our board as well.

That flip is really sort of saying when you're leading with values and leading with culture, these grantmaking principles happen as a result of that. As I was listening, I was thinking about like, how does that play out in our world? And I think part of it is that whole notion of ecosystem. The board, the staff, our colleagues, and then our grantee partners. We talk about trust on those different dimensions, but I would say power flows in that way as well. This whole notion of what role does the board play, or what role do we have staff play in it? What are we here for? Who are we accountable to?

And for us, we don't have the answers. We're not the experts. Our grantee partners know more and have a better sense as to what's going on. So what can we draw from that? As the holders of resources, we get ascribed power, whether it's earned or deserved or not, it just happens. If you think about trust-based in these dimensions, part of it is really trying to flatten that dynamic or balance it in a way it'll never all go away. But what are ways that we can reflect that in the way that we engage with one another and also in the way that we do our grant making?

Shaady Salehi: It's great to think about this work as learning and humility. There's always opportunity to learn collectively. I also want to really open it up now to the group. What if you're still hitting barriers in working toward building a trust-based culture? What does that work of making the case for collective power-building look like? Who needs to be at the table? Who needs to be convinced?

Marcus Walton: The one thing I'll underscore here is through a real reflection over the past few months, the term that has come to mind consistently is quiet desperation. We just don't know what to do, but I'm afraid to say that to anyone. I'm afraid to acknowledge my concerns, my fears, the uncertainty that I'm carrying around this moment like that too, is actually connected to power.

No one individual or small group of individuals is holding this designation of leadership or power. The more we share it, the more we can enter into spaces of discomfort or awkwardness to grapple together with the emotional safety, without judgment or assessment. One of the components of being able to enter into these spaces and make effective cases is to appreciate that the more we share the responsibility for responding, the more we allow for collective genius to be incorporated into the decision-making or problem solving. The more concentrated that is on one individual, the more pressure to respond, the more we start to introduce self-defeating ideas of needing to get it right.

If you think about what it takes to facilitate change, you think about the awkwardness that I described: uncertainty of not being able to bring my best to the work, or feeling like my best is not enough. We also commit to cultivating the courage to be able to do the thing that align with our vision. And perhaps that too is a form of personal power that contributes to this conversation.

Shaady Salehi: Thank you, Marcus. Thank you for really reiterating the importance of culture building. Pia, you've had a little experience talking to folks who are trying to move practice in a countercultural way. What are your suggestions for folks who are in that role? What are some ways to think about that work?

Pia Infante: First assess, is this the institution for me? Especially as people of color, is it worth it for me to stay? Is it worth it for me to put my life energy towards something that feels more aligned with my values? I would never say to someone, ‘Sacrifice your life and your wellbeing for racial equity or trust-based philanthropy in your organization.” If the idea is ‘this institution is not for me, but I have to pay rent and take care of my babies’ and, you know, my whatever, then, cool.

The way that I think about it is, is there a group within this institution that I can have emotional safety with? What are the ways that we can try to influence the whole ship at the strategy level, at the grantmaking level, at the leadership level, if we're not in those positions?

I think those are two essential elements: what's worth our time and energy and life force right now. The other two prongs are, is there an influencer strategy? There may be other ways to think about an influencer strategy from within. Maybe as a group, maybe in a way that we look at who they listen to the most and how can we bring those in a little bit closer?

Then lastly, the piece I was talking about before: what is our personal agency? I'll give you a really concrete example. I don't know how many program officers I've met that are like, “we have a competitive application process. It is exhaustive and taxes every nonprofit leader who tries to fill it out. So I do my best to get them on the phone, get them to tell me everything that we need to hear. I'll put it in a document, send it back to them. Does it look okay? And then literally I'll input it on their behalf because I know they don't have time. They're putting out fires. They just don't have time to spend trying to apply for a single grant.”  So there's ways that within our roles, we can be collaborative, we can be allies, we can be truthful.

Sometimes too, when we work in a foundation, all of a sudden, every cousin, every friend we've ever had that needs funding is like, “Oh, Pia, I'm so glad you work in philanthropy now. So I have this project, and it's about horses. It has really nothing to do with anything you've ever funded, but clearly we need to have a meeting and talk about my horses.” So, I think also just being very honest that even though I have a role at this foundation, I don't have either the direction of the portfolio to be able to fund your horses. Just being honest about what's in our capacity.

It's really about not seeing ourselves as constantly just being subject to power that we can find a way to have our own agency. Even if that agency is, “Oh, thanks, Pia. You've just helped me clarify that I'm not really invested in this institution, but I'm not going to look for a new job until 2021.” Cool. Thanks. I'm good. I think that's what we have to do when we think about what we're going to invest.

Brenda Solarzano: I think I think it's important to also not imagine that you can potentially shift the entire Titanic into this. So not only what is your role and what is your sphere of influence, but where do you start? I grew up in philanthropy. I started out as a program associate and have had every role in between program associate and CEO. In every step of my career, I have always asked myself the question, “What can I do differently in my particular role?” It's all of this learning that led me to the point of where I could envision a different foundation and a different model. I think each of you probably has some idea of what you can do within the sphere of your control to start moving an organization in the direction of trust-based. Even if it's just getting the conversation started with somebody who hasn't been part of this. So, think about baby steps and don’t feel like you need to move the entire institution overnight.

Shaady Salehi: One thing that we often talk about in the context of trust-based philanthropy is to really shift the lens when we're talking about evaluation. This work is about constant learning. It's learning rather than holding grantees accountable to predetermined outcomes and measures. What advice would you offer folks who are trying to make the case for evaluation more as learning rather than outcomes measurement?

Phil Li: I think what we've been trying to do at the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation is think about ways that we can help make the case for unrestricted funding and multi-year, but it's also really trying to understand what is happening with our grantee partners.

We fund leadership development. There's a wide array of issues or identity groups we can work with, but the curiosity of really understanding it has been really pivotal for us. I'll just sort of point out strategic philanthropy where a lot of the metrics are decided and driven for you or come from the world of finance. We talked to our grantee partners and ask, “What does success look like for you? What do you assess yourselves on? What do you talk to your boards about? What do you talk to your communities about?”

For us, that's the best indicator of understanding an organization; what its priorities are, what its values are. That's a springboard for a conversation. That's a huge part of understanding an organization and that way of looking at, what do these dollars offer? What does unrestricted funding offer?

I think the other part of trust-based, and this is kind of inviting a different lens on how you evaluate things and organizations, coming from finance and return on investment and other classic measures that are all numerically driven, that's because they're easily measurable and they seemingly are more objective. But we worked with some of our external evaluators to say, “How can we think about our work in different ways? Or how can we think about gauging our success in that way?” So these evaluators, who have grown up in a really metrics-driven environment, were put to the task to think about a different kind of measure in terms of learning about what kinds of ways do they engage with the organization or what kinds of conversations are being had, or how forthcoming or vulnerable, or what have you. So they've actually come up with something that we call ‘return on relationship’ as our counterbalance to “return on investment”. Whether it's perfect or not, I think it's really just an invitation to think differently and to open our eyes to the possibilities of what does it mean to think about our work in the ways that we are able to be good partners in trust-based work.

It's really opened our doors. It's really this interesting way for us to learn more about our work ourselves, and our grantee partners. And it's a way that we can actually share this information back with our board and the community as a whole.

Shaady Salehi: Thank you, Phil. I'm wondering how others are addressing accountability. This is a strong value for us; holding people in power accountable, holding ourselves accountable to our values and to each other, and ensuring grantees are accountable to community leaders who we think ought to drive the change. So accountability doesn't always feel like trust, but I'm wondering how you all have navigated this.

Brenda Solarzano: Generally boards will say ‘accountability’ very broadly and not really talk about specifically, what are you asking? What is it that you need to know? And why is that important? When you start digging into that, you get down to the nitty gritty of what folks want. At Headwaters, what accountability has meant to the board has come down to a couple of different things.

One, we do what we say we're doing and the community is better for it. I have created what I call a data learning book for our board and it has two different sections. One section is an accountability section. That section looks at things that we actually should be accountable for and that we can actually track. Are we answering the phone quickly? How do grantees rank us relative to other funders? We have a set of specific goals and deliverables that are part of our work plan every year and that the board approves. Are we delivering on that? So that's the piece that has really driven accountability down towards things that we actually have the ability to influence and control.

Then there is a second section of the learning book that I call evaluation and learning for learning purposes. This is where I think we get tripped up because our boards want there to be a difference, and they want it to be on outcomes and metrics in an era when we are doing social change work; where we don't control everything, where the environment is, and what's happening in the environment has maybe greater repercussions than the $5 million that I put into the issues that we are caring about here in Montana. And so I've said to them, “Don't hold me accountable for those things that I can't control. Don't hold our grantees accountable for the things that they cannot control.” We should be talking about what does success look like? What's working? What's not working? And how do we use that information to make different strategic decisions about the investments that we make or the things that we need to be doing in order to be supportive of our grantees in our communities? That framework has been more around learning and it's more storytelling based.

Marcus Walton: I'm really appreciating this question of accountability and particularly how the person that asked the question connected it to trust. I would be remiss if I didn't offer a way of how this concept of accountability actually relates really well with how we view language. To think about how we carry over these dominant cultural values that have actually created the kind of separation is this ‘us versus them versus the we’, and underscores our interconnectedness.

Accountability is less about compliance, which can be more of a traditional way of thinking about it and more of a, what type of support do I need or might I be able to offer to someone else to live up to their commitments? It's living up to commitment. Helping people. Helping being open to others. When we follow through, we deepen trust and rapport. When we deepen trust and rapport, we set the culture—the grounds for facilitating change. This may seem a little bit more abstract, but I hope we appreciate that accountability is critical from the point of view of culture and establishing trust.

Shaady Salehi: Thank you, Marcus. We're getting a lot of positive feedback on that reframing of living up to our commitment, that also connects back to how Brenda was describing the work and how they're thinking about it at Headwaters.

What's the work of embedding a vision for systemic equity within the culture of an organization, and what is the work of actually making the case for that kind of deeper commitment rather than the DEI checkbox?

Pia Infante: We in our sector can ask ourselves, how are we building towards a possibility where philanthropy doesn't need to exist? Part of that is a strong infrastructure in terms of government, like both working on a policy front and trying to fill in where government isn't happening.

There's some really powerful work from groups like Black Voters Matter, and other groups that are trying to ensure that voter suppression doesn't happen. We have always had a value for a strong, inclusive, deep democracy of trust-based philanthropy and that still is true. If we really had that at a systems level around health and education and economy and jobs, access to the very basics. If that was happening through some level of a strong public infrastructure, there would be less of a need for us.

I think also being transparent and direct that a lot of the mainstream culture of philanthropy is a wide academic framework that doesn't center experience, especially direct experience of the problems. Looking at our systems themselves, our policies, our internal organizational practices and behaviors with an equity lens. So how we treat our own workers, our vendors, our partners I know that there's lots of folks that have been looking in that direction. And then philanthropy doesn't lead social and political and economic movements, right? We support them.

The last thing is looking towards the existing really powerful movements of our time to see how we can be of support. Earlier in the chat I called out this really great new collective fund that has come out led by the Libra Foundation. It is called the Democracy Frontlines Fund and it centers 10 Black-led, Black movement organizations, including Black Voters Matter, as 10 organizations that are going to all receive $36 million. Supporting those kinds of efforts, if they're not coming from our direct institutions, is another way that we can be a part of the longer, deeper, wider systems change that is required in this country.

Shaady Salehi: Thank you, Pia. With just a few minutes left I would love to bring it back to our speakers to offer one final piece of advice or word of motivation to our colleagues who are working collectively as a team, or maybe working just as a single entity within an organization trying to push a boulder up a hill, but still doing that good work.

Phil Li: My guidance would be, I'll invite you to fill out your own grant application. That's just a small snippet, but it gives you the experience of what it means to be a grant seeker. It helps reveal what you're actually asking and what you use or don't use as the case may be. That hopefully will get you started on this larger frame, but it can be eye opening.

Marcus Walton: I really want to underscore the importance of demystifying the work that we do as grantmakers. Philanthropy has existed before the institutions themselves. This is an institutional approach to the philanthropy that is common to all traditions around the world. Let's revisit some of the wisdom of our cultural forms of philanthropy. The invitation from me is to actively grapple with colleagues, with each other in these spaces, to address the gaps that we have identified in alignment within our institutions.

As leaders, resist the urge to believe that there's this perfection that exists. If only we operate within a space that is devoid of conflict, then we've gotten it right. I suggest that will never happen. And that the tensions that were existing in the uncertainty that is facing us is actually an invitation into deeper, more profound practice. If we just open ourselves up to it as leaders.

Brenda Solarzano: You just have to start wherever you are. I think just staying on this theme, every foundation is going to be in a different place and you have to figure out where it is that you are, then begin to set up ways to have these conversations. One of the things that I often tell people is that, you know, if you just engage in the conversations with folks about why trust-based philanthropy matters at this particular moment, you can pretty quickly get almost any group of people to say yes, of course, that makes sense. So if you're going to start someplace, start with having the conversations and figure out who those conversations have to be with.

The last thing I'll say it is a journey. There are a lot of times when we at Headwaters feel like we're taking three steps forward and then we'll have to take two steps back. That's just the nature of this work. It's the nature of any change effort that you do. So understanding that and not getting bogged down in the frustration of that so long as you continue to make forward progress.

Shaady Salehi: Thank you, Brenda.

With that, we hope you have a lovely day and special thanks again to Philanthropy California, and to the team at Northern California Grantmakers that ran this whole show today. And thank you to our speakers for being so awesome, so honest, so open, so insightful. We appreciate you.