The challenges that mission-driven organizations are confronting today demand a new kind of philanthropic response to effectively evolve through uncertainty. They also provide an opportunity to evolve our practices and relationships across the social impact sector. For donors and funders, evolving through uncertainty calls for approaches that are collaborative, community-driven, and patient: investing in leadership and organizational resilience in addition to direct service delivery. For social entrepreneurs and nonprofit leaders, it means being candid and transparent about the headwinds and their impacts on organizational health. And for all of us, it means building communities of support rather than going it alone to evolve through uncertainty.

Many of us have been in this work long enough to know that every era feels like the most challenging one we’ve faced. And yet, something about this period is different and requires us to be even more strategic in how we evolve through uncertainty. The convergence of economic precarity, political polarization, rapid technological change, and major demographic shifts is forcing all of us in philanthropy to ask fundamental questions about how we can most effectively generate impact.

At New Profit, we’ve spent nearly 30 years building relationships with social entrepreneurs who have lived experience with the issues they’re addressing. This approach to evolving through uncertainty keeps us grounded in what’s actually happening, rather than leading with top-down assumptions from conference rooms or strategy retreats. And right now, our portfolio leaders and field networks are surfacing some critical themes that can help all of us—funders, donors, nonprofits, policymakers, and community leaders—to evolve through uncertainty with clarity, purpose, and impact.

Philanthropic intermediaries—mission-driven organizations that connect donors with grantees and strategize charitable giving—have expanded significantly in recent years. These include collaborative funds and other platforms, like New Profit, designed to make philanthropy more effective. The growth is driven by several factors, including a historic pullback in public funding and the rise of ultra-high net wealth individuals seeking to maximize their impact and help nonprofits evolve through uncertainty. According to Gates Philanthropy Partners, intermediaries are now “one of the fastest-growing drivers of philanthropy today.”

Read the full article about philanthropy evolving through uncertainty at New Profit.