Hands shaking. /PHOTO ;Pexel
For decades, philanthropy has been guided by a quiet contradiction. It promises empowerment but often practices control.
Nonprofits, especially smaller community-based ones, have long had to twist themselves into bureaucratic knots to access funding, drafting exhaustive proposals, reporting on every dollar, and performing gratitude that sometimes borders on humiliation.
Then came a quiet revolution: trust-based philanthropy.
The idea sounds simple: give money with fewer strings, trust the people doing the work, and share power.
However, as explored in The Future of Philanthropy Is Trust-Based, a 2024 supplement to the Stanford Social Innovation Review, this movement is not just about loosening the reins.
It’s about rewriting philanthropy’s DNA, challenging the old hierarchies of giver and receiver, and redefining accountability itself.
The Shift That Changed Everything
The turning point came in 2020, when the pandemic and global racial justice uprisings prompted funders to reassess their approach.
“Funders began to reexamine their work at every level,” writes Shaady Salehi, cofounder of the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project.
“They moved money quickly, with fewer strings attached.”
What began as a crisis response turned into a new standard.
That year, a coalition of funders began promoting six key practices to rebalance power: unrestricted funding, streamlined paperwork, transparent communication, and multi-year commitments among them.
Within four years, hundreds of organizations had joined the movement.
The message was clear: if nonprofits are trusted to solve complex social problems, they must also be trusted to decide how to spend the money.
For many foundations, this shift was uncomfortable but necessary.
The pandemic exposed how traditional grantmaking slowed responses to urgent needs.
Many organizations working on the frontlines of health, food, and education could not wait months for approvals.
Funders saw that their own systems, designed for accountability, were often barriers to impact.
The shift, Salehi notes, was not merely administrative; it was cultural. It required funders to “relinquish personal power to build collective power.”
This cultural change has ripple effects. It asks funders to move from performance-based philanthropy, where every grant comes with metrics and milestones, to relationship-based philanthropy, where impact is co-created, not audited.
And while this approach sounds intuitive, it upends decades of deeply entrenched norms in the global aid and development system.
Power, Race, and Responsibility
But trust alone does not erase history. Many philanthropic institutions were born out of privilege and systems of inequality. For some, trust-based philanthropy became a way to confront that legacy head-on.
The Hill-Snowdon Foundation in the United States, for instance, used the 2020 reckoning to reorient its entire structure.
The foundation embraced multiyear funding, simplified its board processes, and transferred decision-making power to staff.
But perhaps the biggest shift was philosophical.
The foundation began to view itself not as a supporter but as a servant with a purpose to “follow the lead of marginalized individuals working to create a new system that benefits everyone.”
This is not charity as benevolence but philanthropy as partnership. It reflects a growing awareness that justice, not generosity, should be the goal.
The African Lens
Trust-based philanthropy is also gaining traction across Africa, where local institutions are increasingly reimagining what equitable giving looks like.
Rather than waiting for donor-led reform, many are charting their own paths toward community-driven, participatory funding.
Organizations such as TrustAfrica have long championed this approach, calling for funding models that shift decision-making to communities themselves.
Their coalitions across the continent show that African-led philanthropy doesn’t need to mimic Western hierarchies to be effective; it can model reciprocity, flexibility, and solidarity instead.
This transformation is perhaps most visible in South Africa, where the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project (CTAOP) has redefined accountability in its partnerships with youth-led groups.
Working to improve health outcomes, especially around HIV prevention, CTAOP prioritizes relationships and mutual learning over rigid reporting.
At one point, the organization realized its reporting demands were doing more harm than good.
After receiving candid feedback from partners, one bluntly said, “Your reporting sucks.”
CTAOP redesigned its process with grantees, replacing compliance-heavy reports with shared learning sessions.
The change unleashed creativity.
In the Eastern Cape, a community-led mental health program gained such momentum that it was adopted by the provincial government.
Elsewhere, young people used local music and dance to spread vital information on HIV treatment.
Similar thinking is guiding the Kenya Community Development Foundation (KCDF), which gives communities partial control over endowments and decision-making.
By treating grantees as co-investors rather than recipients, KCDF demonstrates that shared ownership, both financial and strategic, creates deeper, longer-lasting impact.
Across these examples, a common thread emerges: African philanthropy is reclaiming the principles of trust-based giving not as an imported model, but as an affirmation of values rooted in community, cooperation, and self-determination.
Rest as Resistance
Trust, as the SSIR report argues, also means investing in human well-being.
The Durfee and Satterberg Foundations in the U.S. have been pioneers in offering sabbaticals to nonprofit leaders a radical idea in a sector defined by exhaustion.
These programs show that rest is not indulgence but infrastructure. Leaders return renewed, teams grow stronger, and organizations become more sustainable.
This lesson is deeply relevant to Africa, where community organizations often run on fumes.
KCDF, for instance, has begun incorporating wellness and capacity-building support alongside grants. Such initiatives align closely with the trust-based principle that “nonprofit health and well-being are ingredients in social progress.”
Trust-based philanthropy invites funders to recognize that the burnout crisis is itself a product of unequal power dynamics.
When the sector expects endless sacrifice from those closest to the problem while funders operate from comfort, it replicates the same hierarchies it seeks to dismantle.
By acknowledging this imbalance, trust-based philanthropy reframes wellness not as a perk but as a form of justice. Healthy leaders sustain healthy movements—and that, ultimately, sustains social change.
The Challenge of Letting Go
Yet trust-based philanthropy is not without its tensions. Critics warn that “trust” can become a buzzword masking poor oversight or favoritism.
Without thoughtful structures, it risks being misused. Funders must still balance faith with responsibility, ensuring that resources truly serve communities and not just institutional ideals.
Even among advocates, there’s recognition that the movement’s greatest challenge lies within funders themselves. “Making changes in practice is relatively easy,” Salehi writes. “But trust-based philanthropy goes much deeper than grantmaking.”
It demands humility, courage, and the willingness to admit mistakes, a trait rare in institutions built on control. Still, this discomfort is part of the process.
As one trust-based leader put it, “If philanthropy isn’t uncomfortable, it isn’t changing.”
Toward a Shared Future
Trust-based philanthropy is, in essence, an act of democracy.
It invites funders to share decision-making power, to acknowledge historical inequities, and to see grantees as equals in purpose. In doing so, it asks both sides to reimagine what impact really means.
In a world where crises are increasingly interconnected, including climate change, inequality, health, and migration, the old model of command-and-control philanthropy is losing ground.
Whether in Baltimore or Blantyre, Cape Town or California, funders are realizing that collaboration, not compliance, is the currency of meaningful change.
The future of philanthropy may depend less on the sophistication of its systems and more on the humility of its approach.
As Pia Infante, a senior fellow with the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project, puts it, “The ultimate work is to build a democracy that acknowledges where wealth comes from, and where decision-making belongs.”
Perhaps the future of giving is not about money at all. It’s about faith, the belief that those closest to the problem already hold the solutions, if only we trust them enough to lead.
This article references ideas and case studies discussed in “The Future of Philanthropy Is Trust-Based” (Stanford Social Innovation Review, Spring 2024) and integrates supplementary insights from wider global and African philanthropic experiences.
