Community-engaged research is increasingly central to philanthropic practice, yet funders rarely provide guidance for compensating community members who participate as co-researchers. This gap is especially pronounced for youth, who often face administrative, legal, and developmental constraints that complicate what “fair pay” looks like in practice. This article presents findings from a mixed-methods comparative case study of three youth participatory action-research projects involving 44 youth ages 16–24 across varied organizational settings. Data were collected through youth surveys, focus groups, staff interviews, financial analysis, and document review. Findings show that each model carries distinct trade-offs related to feasibility, transparency, and administrative capacity, with no single model well-suited to all youth engagement contexts. To support philanthropic organizations and their partners, the authors introduce practical tools including a compensation calculator, model agreements, and a compliance checklist, along with guidance for adapting compensation systems across organizational contexts.
Dominant Western ideology limits our understanding of and engagement with time, representing it as a linear two-dimensional arrow that moves forward in one direction from the past to the future. Viewing the past, present, and future as distinct and disconnected phases can hinder the growth and improvement of organizations working on building their evaluation capacity. In contrast to Western notions of time, Indigenous cultures of the Americas and Africa understand the interconnectedness of all aspects of being, that our experiences are more cyclical, where birth leads to death and death to rebirth. The Sankofa principle, rooted in Akan philosophy, states to go back and retrieve what has been lost. Time travel as a methodological practice to build evaluation capacity is a five-phased interconnected cycle grounded in the principle of Sankofa and inspired by Afrofuturism. In theory, it challenges organizations to move beyond linear time and to engage in cyclical, reflective, and transformative practices that build evaluation capacity. In practice, organizations successfully analyze themselves in their work, develop trust with fellow travelers (i.e., teammates), learn the impact of oppressive laws and practices on current social contexts, and ultimately develop a plan to transform their organizations from within.
This article argues that foundations must shift from acting as grantmakers alone to becoming active stewards of cross-sector collaborative networks. Drawing from more than two decades of field experience and research each, the authors outline a framework for moving from collaborative rhetoric to action, identifying four essential and interconnected actions: fueling trust, elevating purpose, nurturing networks, and strengthening stewardship. Through case examples, the article illustrates how authentic, trust-based relationships, shared goals, and relational network leadership can drive scalable, sustainable impact. The article offers both a compelling critique of traditional philanthropic approaches and a strategic road map for how foundations can evolve into catalysts, helping communities unlock their full potential.
This mixed-methods exploratory study investigates whether organizational readiness to implement change predicts capacity-building success more reliably than the level of perceived need. Using a six-factor readiness assessment measuring clear priorities, change management resources, time investment commitment, board engagement, systems infrastructure, and cash flow, data from 10 participating organizations reveal a significant correlation between readiness scores and early capacity-building outcomes. The findings challenge three common field assumptions: that the greatest capacity-building need should drive selection, that capacity-building works uniformly across developmental stages, and that dysfunction can be addressed through “standard” capacity-building programming.
Evaluation capacity building (ECB) in the philanthropic sector is often designed around a common set of assumptions: organizations need to be directed toward “correct” evaluation practices, compliance is the primary motivator for engagement, and funder-defined metrics are the most appropriate measure of success. This article challenges these assumptions by sharing insights from a multi-year ECB initiative funded by Houston Endowment called Harnessing the Power of Data. Drawing on surveys, interviews, and program participation data, the authors explore how co-creating learning goals in a strengths-based structure shifts the evaluation culture of an organization. Key lessons include: (1) how flexibility and alignment to partners’ values improve engagement; (2) how the benefits of ECB extend beyond grant reporting by connecting internal reflection to external impact; and (3) how stipends can spark initial engagement but may not sustain it. These findings illustrate how reframing ECB as a co-learning practice can build nonprofit capacity in ways more relevant to their needs. The authors reflect on how these learnings intersect with the field’s growing commitment to trust-based philanthropy, offering practical insights for balancing listening with structure.
Despite rising interest in supporting local causes, many donors continue to give to large, nationally recognized nonprofits. This reflects ongoing structural barriers such as limited nonprofit visibility, decision fatigue, and search environments that prioritize brand familiarity. At the same time, small-dollar giving has declined for three consecutive years, highlighting the need for more transparent, accessible, and trustworthy tools to support donor decision-making (Childress, 2024; Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, 2023). In a 2024 evaluation study, 291 U.S. donors were randomly assigned to use either the Giving Compass Guide to Good platform or general internet tools to select a new nonprofit for a $50 donation. Giving Compass users were significantly more likely to give locally, selected nonprofits with smaller net assets, and reported higher trust in the sector by the end of the study. Findings suggest donor tools shaped by behavioral science and ethical AI design can support more intentional and equitable giving. As foundations and intermediaries continue to invest in digital infrastructure, this study points to the importance of search transparency, algorithmic accountability, and capacity-building for smaller nonprofits.
Grants fuel millions of organizations and advance social innovation across sectors. In the United States, foundations and corporations respectively awarded $103.5B and $36.5B to nonprofits in 2023 alone (Childress, 2024; Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, 2024). By extension, grant applications play a critical role in how grant recipients are identified and selected. While many funders are eager for more streamlined and equitable processes to review grant applications, the process remains primarily a manual and time consuming one (Hewlett Foundation, 2021). These factors leave some funders implementing grant application processes potentially at odds with their impact goals. Examples include restricting who can apply, including only application reviewers with specific credentials, or not screening for inconsistencies among reviewer assessments (Candid., n.d.). In this article, readers will learn how Missouri Foundation for Health and AI PRIORI® used artificial intelligence to inform a more effective, efficient, and equity focused application review process. Readers will gain insights into the experiments, AI tools used, and preparation and evaluation of data sets.
Traditional approaches to place-based philanthropy, including comprehensive community initiatives (CCIs), are characterized by four design features: 1) a centralized stakeholder group that serves as the primary nexus for the foundation’s engagement; 2) an extensive planning process on the front end; 3) the planning group’s initial strategy serves as the basis for the foundation’s investments throughout the initiative; and 4) foundation staff play a largely transactional role in reviewing proposals, awarding grants and monitoring progress. This linear, structured approach to community change has had only limited success over 30 years of foundation practice. In response, a growing number of foundations have been experimenting with a more emergent place-based model. In this approach, the projects pursued by local actors evolve over the course of the initiative. Foundation staff cultivate this work and are deeply engaged with a wide range of local actors rather than focusing on a single planning entity. This article summarizes evaluation data from six foundations that have worked in this way: The California Endowment, the Clinton Foundation, Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, The Ford Family Foundation, The Colorado Trust, and The Colorado Health Foundation. The available evaluations indicate that the six initiatives have each stimulated a broad range of local actors to step out into new work. In many communities, their work is expanding and diversifying the base of local leaders and setting the stage for more fundamental forms of community change. These actors are creating more effective systems and are beginning to reorient local institutions to be responsive to all community segments. In a few instances, the evaluation reports point to at least the beginnings of a shift in local power dynamics. In some communities, the culture is shifting in ways that promote resilience, inclusivity, and equity. The results are discussed with regard to both the extra value that foundations add by operating in a cultivating mode and the question of how much communitywide impact they can achieve with even the highest functioning place-based initiative.
In 2019, Fund for Shared Insight made grants to six research teams to test the hypothesis that if direct-service organizations gain a deeper understanding of how well their programs are serving clients by listening and actively responding to client feedback, they can increase the likelihood of positive outcomes. This body of research explores the case for incorporating participant voice to improve program effectiveness. As philanthropy seeks to become more responsive to the people and communities most impacted by their decisions, this research has important implications for philanthropic practice, including the selection of grantees, learning in partnership with grantees and community, and capacity-building support that can strengthen feedback practice in ways that advance equity.
Many foundations are making long-term commitments to advancing systemic change, continually adapting and refining their approaches along the way. An emerging and often underutilized tool in their systems change toolkit is generative artificial intelligence (AI). AI is enhancing practices across philanthropy, often focused on increasing efficiencies and scaling or streamlining human tasks. What if we instead focus on what AI can do that is distinctly different from what a human can offer? In the world of systemic change, we continue to struggle with the complexity and intractability of systems and finding moments when systems can be shifted. AI can be a new type of “contributor,” offering access to deep knowledge across systems and contexts; rapid synthesis; the ability to answer questions in real time; and bringing relevant, even if obscure, examples. This article explores examples and opportunities for using AI throughout systems work in philanthropy, including as philanthropy first enters into understanding a system; developing strategies; testing and refining strategies, including identifying alternatives; during ongoing sensemaking, learning, and adaptation; and with comprehensive evaluations that make visible how, why, and under what conditions change happened.
The co-authors have framed this article as an emergent learning journal of sorts, summarizing observations, findings, and key takeaways; walking the reader through the process, key tensions, and classic myths they identified; and highlighting principles they uncovered that underlie and lay the groundwork for imagining more equitable ways for evaluation consultants and foundations to act in relationships.
The authors identified four archetypes describing philanthropic funders’ approach to AI: The Curious, The Doers, The Dreamers, The Skeptics. The authors did not find major differences found across foundations based on their geographic location, though there were differences found based on their mission and values. Feminist and social justice funders in the Global South demonstrated more skepticism than others. Even in seemingly benign or straightforward applications, AI systems demonstrate unpredictable behavior, leading to most foundations proceeding with caution. The rapid pace of AI has meant that formal AI policies are rare, though foundations align on some common “red lines” that guide internal use of AI.
Grant reporting has largely devolved from a learning tool to a bureaucratic exercise that reinforces power asymmetries and burdens nonprofits. As philanthropy confronts mounting crises demanding equity and transparency, reporting must transform into a space for collective sensemaking. This paper explores how Artificial Intelligence (AI), paired with Oral and Alternate Reporting (OAR) methods, can build equitable, human-centered reporting systems. We propose the E4 framework — Efficiency, Effectiveness, Expansiveness, and Equity — for intentionally leveraging AI in service of more equitable reporting practices. Traditional reporting often sidelines the expertise of nonprofit staff and communities most affected by funded programs. Drawing on our own AI experimentation and grantee partnerships, we offer design principles and micro-moves for immediate implementation. We call on philanthropic leaders to both reposition reporting as a strategic site for trust-building and to intentionally leverage AI to support innovation and transformation in grant reporting that centers community voice, advances equity, and enables the collective learning essential for addressing complex social challenges.
As artificial intelligence rapidly reshapes society, philanthropy is increasingly called to act as "risk capital" for the public good. But risk alone is not enough. Without rigorous, field-wide learning, philanthropy's bold bets may remain isolated and short-sighted, failing to catalyze the systemic change this moment demands. This article draws on three sources of learning at Omidyar Network—an evaluation of The Tech We Want initiative, external strategy consultations with 29 stakeholders, and early learnings from a generative AI portfolio—to identify how philanthropy can uniquely "de-risk" AI innovation for collective benefit. Through trust-based partnerships, ecosystem infrastructure support, and narrative change, these learning opportunities revealed that philanthropy must show up beyond funding, signaling what works, sharing lessons openly, and creating enabling conditions for others to act. This article identifies four critical insights for how philanthropy can use learning to unlock collaboration, shift public narratives, and equip the field to act with both urgency and wisdom in shaping AI's trajectory toward shared power, prosperity, and possibility.
Resilience is the capacity to experience a significant shock and adapt as needed to survive and move forward. The current age is one of constant system shocks economically, environmentally, and politically. Resilience becomes essential for navigating these and other risks. Individuals, organizations, communities, and ecosystems manifest different degrees and types of resilience requiring appropriately matched evaluation responses. In considering new directions for philanthropic evaluation, this article offers for the first time an overarching framework of four different responses to system shocks and disruptions. This leads to four different evaluation criteria: continuity, adaptation, innovation, and capitulation. In addition to the long-term value of elevating adaptive resilience as a core capacity and evaluation criterion for grantees and foundations generally, the more immediate reason to focus on resilience is the political and financial disruption created by the Trump administration’s regressive policies aimed at ending progressive initiatives for a more just and sustainable world. Systematic evaluation of the effects of regressive policies is an opportunity for philanthropy to take a serious look at how foundations and grantees respond to powerful and organized opposition, to learn how to deepen and enhance resilience, and to figure out how to mitigate short-term destructive effects so they do not become permanent.
Philanthropy can be a powerful force for social change, with influence extending far beyond the funding period. When foundations decide to cease funding in a specific area, how they exit can significantly impact the field they are leaving in both the short- and long-term. A poorly executed exit risks blindsiding grant partners and communities, damaging key relationships, undermining progress, and potentially leaving the field worse off than it was found. In contrast, a responsible exit can help the work continue long after the foundation ceases its funding. What defines a responsible exit? In this article, learning leaders at three different philanthropies attempt to answer this question by drawing on literature, focus groups, interviews with foundation staff and nonprofit leaders, and their own experiences in philanthropy and the nonprofit sector. The resulting framework outlines seven core elements of a responsible exit to ensure that the ecosystem is as resilient and well-equipped as possible to continue the work when funders step away. This framework is shared with humility and the hope that others will improve upon it as the philanthropic sector advances its practice with a commitment to both equity and the perspectives of grant partners.
Reflecting a growing consensus that meaningful change doesn’t come without the involvement of those most impacted, funders have signed on to efforts to “listen,” “get proximate,” and “empower.” In this article, the authors draw on their lived expertise and research to describe how even well-intentioned community engagement efforts can become extractive, tokenizing, and undermine existing community assets. As a meaningful alternative, the authors suggest “centering community” as an orientation to all philanthropic work and the Community Bill of Rights (CBR) as a tool to guide the required change (Black et al., 2022). Drawing on case examples from healthcare, urban planning, and other fields, the authors suggest an imperative for philanthropy to join government and community change agents in using the CBR to shift its approach to one where community is treated not as a stakeholder but as the primary owner of process, outcomes, and futures.
Funder listening is an essential complement to community participation to disrupt white dominant culture habits that entrench the status quo of hierarchy and power. Community-centered listening, combined with participatory processes, offers funders an opportunity to shift in deep and sustainable ways from an individualistic, “power over” orientation to interdependent relationships with community partners. In this article, two practitioners of equity and participatory philanthropy share how funder listening and community participation form a potent combination to help funders confront their own power and use it intentionally to honor and bolster community ownership and agency. Drawing on the authors’ direct experience, this article features case examples of diverse funders who are on the path to shifting power through listening and participatory processes, and points to tools we have developed and/or use regularly with funders to enable power relationships and structures to shift.
There are a variety of ways funders and nonprofits are trying to shift the power dynamics between those who typically have held it (i.e., funders and organizations) to those who have unique and important expertise: those most affected by the problems the social sector is trying to solve. In this article, we share lessons from two evaluations that sought to understand how those who were being listened to experienced the listening process, exploring the degree to which people felt heard and their experiences of how, and in what ways, power shifted for them. One evaluation focused on the experiences of individuals who had given feedback to nonprofits serving them. While this evaluation focused on nonprofit organizations, we believe the lessons learned about how feedback and the act of listening itself influenced organizational change and advanced equity within organizations has relevance for funders, as well. In the second, we explicitly explored questions of power-shifting with participants in and grantees of a participatory grantmaking initiative. By looking across these two sets of evaluation findings, we elevate ways of thinking about power, as well as new considerations and implications for funders who seek to listen to the people most impacted by the problems they are working on.
Over the last several years, numerous foundations have endeavored to forge deeper relationships with grantees and challenge the status quo in strategy development and evaluation design. Encouraged by efforts such as the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project and the Equitable Evaluation Initiative, some funders are seeking to redefine how they engage grantees and field partners by navigating the nuances of power dynamics, mutual interests, and genuine collaboration. While there are encouraging signs of progress, there are also plenty of examples of foundation and nonprofit leaders getting stuck or reverting to the modus operandi. Competing agendas, the lack of sustained political will, and general inertia often undermine equity-driven efforts, making it challenging to translate commitments into practice. How can foundations and nonprofits committed to equity and inclusion continue to lean in rather than step back? The Irvine Foundation has a long history of listening to community and workers, specifically. To help shape the strategy of a new statewide policy advocacy initiative, the foundation convened a smaller subset of grantees (leaders of community organizing agencies, statewide advocacy and immigrant rights organizations, movement coalition leaders, and research partners) who represented an emerging community of ecosystem players. Once the strategy was approved by the foundation board, the same group introduced the strategy to Irvine's grantee partners and continued to shape a collaborative "vision of success" and the initiative's approach to learning and evaluation. Based on interviews with foundation staff, consultants, and grantees, this article elevates key insights from this engagement process and efforts to move beyond listening toward authentic, early, and iterative engagement of grantees in philanthropic strategy and evaluation design. We explore what it takes to lean into the messiness of relational philanthropy and power dynamics.
