Much ink has been spilled about the tensions in society writ large lately, and this spills over into philanthropy. Ahead of the Philanthropic Foundations Canada conference in September, The Philanthropist Journal spoke to leaders about what trends are top of mind for them this year – and which tensions they’ve noticed of late.
The world is changing, and so is philanthropy. It’s a common refrain.
“A dizzying array of global, community, and philanthropic trends . . . are radically transforming local landscapes,” reads a Deloitte report about change in philanthropy. “Massive demographic shifts are changing the face of . . . neighborhoods and will ultimately change the complexion of philanthropy as well,” while “deep divisions across economic, political, and racial lines are fragmenting local communities and creating new social challenges.”
The thing is: that report was written in 2014.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic. Before Black Lives Matter. Before the invasion of Ukraine or October 7 or the war in Gaza. Before TikTok even existed.
I think there will always be new tensions as new approaches are appearing.
Marina Nuri, WES Mariam Assefa Fund
There has been much ink spilled about the tensions in society writ large as of late, and this spills over into philanthropy. “I think there will always be some new tensions as new approaches are appearing,” says Marina Nuri, director of the WES Mariam Assefa Fund’s Canada strategy and programs. She notes that tensions can be “caused by trying to make positive change.”
At the same time, the sector faces a long list of challenges. “Demand for services, lack of volunteers, HR issues, succession planning – it’s not new,” says Arti Freeman, CEO of the Definity Insurance Foundation. “The reality is they have become more prominent.”
Ahead of the Philanthropic Foundations Canada (PFC) conference to be held this September, The Philanthropist Journal spoke to leaders across the sector about what trends – and tensions – are top of mind for them this year: what’s a fad, what’s a transformation, and what still remains to be seen?
Partnerships to tackle the polycrisis
“We know as the philanthropic sector that we should collaborate more,” says Ian Boeckh, president and director of the Graham Boeckh Foundation. Whether it’s housing, climate change, the biodiversity crisis, mental health issues, or reconciliation, it’s increasingly clear to many that no one organization can hope to solve – or even make a sizable dent in – the polycrisis today.
There is no realistic hope of addressing many of these complex issues without wide-scale collaboration and partnership.
Ian Boeckh, Graham Boeckh Foundation
“Philanthropy has the flexibility to look at what are the forces underlying this issue that can be addressed,” Boeckh says. But to do that means adapting to meet the moment. “The actions that we take have to match the scale of the issue,” he says. “Thinking small and acting small with very large complex issues may not get us where we want to go.” He adds, “There is no realistic hope of addressing many of these complex issues without wide-scale collaboration and partnership. And it’s hard. It takes a lot of sustained effort over many years.”
He points to the importance of tracking and measuring – as a sector – how many collaborations are happening and in what ways. “We need to measure how much we’re collaborating, because we don’t really know,” he says.
Partnering to improve efficiency — and to learn
Collaborating with other funders is emerging as a trend not only to have greater impact, but also to improve internal practices and to learn from other funders. “We’re starting to participate in more and more funder collaboratives. It’s extremely important that funders come together to talk,” says Mike Williams, director of granting at The Waltons Trust, “just to identify those tensions or those sticking points and have that communication.” He adds, “Sometimes funders are so siloed, and we’re doing the same things. We’re working with the same partners.”
Collaboration can help to change some internal practices of funders or experiment with new ways and ideas.
Marina Nuri
Nuri also sees the huge potential in partnering with other funders. “There’s so many benefits,” she says, citing access to communities as an example. The WES Mariam Assefa Fund, which is the philanthropic arm of World Education Services, wanted to fund in Quebec but was not based there. So it partnered with a Quebec-based organization. “It was a joint funding initiative, so that also helped catalyze more funding for them . . . It’s usually a chain reaction, and other funders want to join in. And it helps to bring more money to specific communities.”
Not only that, she says that collaboration can “help to change some internal practices of funders or experiment with new ways and ideas.”
WES Mariam Assefa Fund is a partner in the Workforce Funder Collaborative, a group of organizations that have united with a goal of strengthening workforce development in and around Toronto. The collaborative seeks to bring together liked-minded foundations (and corporations) – each provides funding to invest in relevant initiatives. “Collaboration between funders can unlock new opportunities,” Nuri says. “If each funder was funding separately, they would focus on their own specific issue area, or it would be less money just because each funder can only do so much. So it’s just an example of this kind of synergy between different focus areas and resulting in more money for specific opportunities.”
Embracing trust-based philanthropy – but still learning
Trust-based philanthropy has become increasingly popular in recent years. It’s a way of giving based on several principles, including reducing paperwork for grantees, allocating unrestricted (and longer-term) funding, strengthening the voice of community members and grant recipients in decision-making, and generally placing more trust in grantees. It’s a movement that has gained significant traction, and momentum is building. But as with many new ideas, there can be tensions as adaptation increases. These days, it’s gained enough traction to have skeptics – there’s even a term for organizations that don’t walk the talk: “trust-washing.”
“I think one of the tensions in trust-based philanthropy is [figuring out] how you can continue learning and at the same time be a trust-based philanthropic organization,” Nuri says. “I think, for some, they see it as just completely letting go and not even trying to understand what grantee organizations are doing.”
How do we balance being involved while at the same time being trust-based?
Marina Nuri
Nuri wants to lean in on this tension. “We want to reduce the burden of reporting, but at the same time, we want to be supportive – and we want to be learning so that we can support successful solutions going forward, or learn from successes and failures,” she adds. “How do we balance being involved while at the same time being trust-based, and reducing the burden of all the things that foundations often have to do with their grantees?” Nuri views conversations about these questions as opportunities to further refine a positive trend to ensure that it reaches maximum potential.
Having meaningful conversations in a polarized world
“Truths aren’t uniform,” says Riz Ibrahim, CEO of the Counselling Foundation of Canada. “We’re really challenged to find a unified perspective in terms of the value of life.”
Several leaders pointed to facilitated dialogue sessions hosted by PFC as a step toward learning, or relearning, the skills to navigate difficult conversations, from growing antisemitism, Islamophobia, and anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian hate in Canada to ongoing violence in Israel and Palestine. “This initiative does not seek to change minds, debate, or tone police,” according to PFC’s website. “The intention is to nurture learning and help us practise how to engage with one another in our own communities and contexts, when we disagree – and when we’re experiencing high tension and polarization – so that we can foster understanding and generate ideas and solutions towards moving forward together.”
We need to search out those commonalities.
Riz Ibrahim, Counselling Foundation of Canada
When it comes to intense conflicts currently facing the world – and the sector, whether through the pressures felt by grantees and communities or as a result of internal tensions – Ibrahim says it’s important to continue to push for, and through, difficult conversations. “I go back to the idea of a minimum bar: what could we all agree on for the value or dignity of human life?”
“It challenges us all to find the middle place,” he says. “We need to search out those commonalities.”
On leadership and recruitment
“How are our communities that foundations serve being reflected in the leadership of those foundations in the sector at large?” Ibrahim asks.
He sees potential for a trend toward more creative and equity-based thinking about recruitment and the fostering of talent. “From a sector-development perspective, what are the pathways for opportunities? How do we create those spaces to develop the sector for its work not only for now, but for the future?” he asks. “I’m not just talking about succession, at the board level or the senior leadership level, but also creating opportunities from the ground up for people to come into the world of philanthropy.”
I’m very mindful that usually philanthropy doesn’t show up anywhere in the radar of people thinking about careers.
Riz Ibrahim
“I’m very mindful that usually philanthropy doesn’t show up anywhere in the radar of people thinking about careers,” he says. “How do we introduce that – especially to communities that would never, ever come in contact with the philanthropic world? How do we introduce that as a viable career path? How do we create opportunities for people in those communities to participate and to develop within the ranks of those organizations and eventually add to the value of the sector going forward?”
The answers to those questions, he says, could help radically increase the diversity of people working within the sector.
Embracing spending down – to zero
The standard way of operating involves an organization created to last in perpetuity. But some are embracing a sunset model: intentionally planning to spend and allocate all of an organization’s funds. Though there are examples – the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the US or the Ivey Foundation in Canada, for instance – it remains relatively uncommon for a foundation to plan its own expiry date. Not so at The Waltons Trust, where the organization planned a 13-year “spend-down” and has seven years remaining.
“When we started this up five years ago, we had to look to the US largely to learn about what it meant to be a spend-down,” Williams says. “We’re hoping to kind of start bringing our experiences to the table and starting to discuss what that has meant for us in terms of how we’ve structured our organization around this, how we work with our partners and grantees.”
There’s urgent and critical issues that require more funding . . . They don’t need this 100 years from now; they need it right now.
Mike Williams, The Waltons Trust
“There’s certain ideas that we certainly live by – our philosophy of spending down and why we live and breathe this,” Williams explains. “Whether societal or environmental, there’s urgent and critical issues that require more funding, more resources, to address them. They don’t need this 100 years from now; they need it right now.”
“We really look at our partnerships, and how do we build the strength and durability of organizations, because as a spend-down, we go away,” he says.
Preparing for an upcoming federal election
The next Canadian federal election will be held by or in October 2025. With numerous polls predicting that a Conservative majority looks likely, sector leaders are encouraging organizations to prepare.
“Depending on where we go politically, we’re going to see other trends, and we can anticipate what those might be,” Arti Freeman says, adding that if there’s a change in government, “it’s going to be a different way of working and thinking that’s going to have implications for the sector.”
It’s going to be a different way of working and thinking.
Arti Freeman, Definity Insurance Foundation
Whether a change in government is viewed as positive or negative may well depend on the organization and its priorities, but there’s little doubt that an end to nearly a decade of Liberal power will spell changes for the way the sector works, whether it be in relation to the government itself or how it functions in the broader ecosystem of needs across Canada.
For Nuri, it could end up meaning repeating work to hold the line on progress. “It might end up being a huge step back in terms of all the progress that has been achieved in terms of narrative change in the community and in terms of progress made for specific communities,” she says. “It could require more work that maybe already has been done. It’s kind of losing progress that non-profits and charities have already been making, and we may need to support them again to push back and regain those wins.”
Freeman cautions that a new government can mean learning a new strategy for communicating and advocating. There will be, she says, value in knowing when to be strategic and when to be silent. At the same time, she says, “we need to be more courageous in speaking about issues,” regardless of the government at the helm.
Remembering that change can happen – and quickly
Boeckh recalls recently being in a room full of leaders in philanthropy. Someone asked who in the crowd used various aspects of trust-based or equity-based philanthropy in their organizations. “Ninety to 95% of people raised their hand,” Boeckh says. “Five years ago, I think many of the people in the room would never have even heard of trust-based philanthropy.”
The speed with which the philanthropic sector has changed, in some cases in fundamental ways in the way it works, is quite extraordinary.
Ian Boeckh
“The speed with which the philanthropic sector has changed, in some cases in fundamental ways in the way it works, is quite extraordinary,” he says.
For Boeckh, it’s not so much about the content of the question, but the rapidity by which awareness has changed. And in that, he sees great potential for transformations across the sector.
