Social scientists in the United States have long wrestled with a fundamental problem: Most of the research about human behavior that they are taught has been conducted on Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic populations—what psychologist Joseph Henrich and colleagues have dubbed “WEIRD” societies, neglecting to study global majority funding practices. These populations represent roughly 12 percent of humanity, yet their behavioral patterns are treated as central to understanding universal truths.

Philanthropy in the United States suffers from a similar form of myopia. We’ve built our sector on the assumption that US institutional models represent the pinnacle of philanthropic practice, failing to acknowledge the legitimacy of global majority funding practices. We pride ourselves on “learning journeys” and “listening tours” while consistently overlooking many of the world’s most effective philanthropic innovations—not because they’re obscure, but because they exist outside the institutional frameworks we reflexively recognize as legitimate.

The irony in the current historical moment is acute. As trust in US institutions declines and global challenges demand urgent response, philanthropy as we know it looks ill-equipped for the volatility and complexity ahead. Meanwhile, communities comprising the Global Majority—which includes people of African, Asian, Latin American, and Indigenous descent, who constitute approximately 85 percent of the world’s population—have spent generations navigating political instability, resource constraints, and urgent crises. Similarly disregarded communities closer to home have also developed their own models of collective care and mutual aid that constitute global majority funding practices. These include Indigenous communities, Black communities, and poor communities.

Among them, these groups have developed global majority funding practices that are more flexible, crisis-tested, community-rooted, and effective at resource mobilization than many of our institutional approaches are ever likely to be. Yet the philanthropic sector regularly ignores them or treats them as mere curiosities rather than viewing them as compelling practices from which to learn.

It’s time for the philanthropic sector to recognize that the most innovative solutions for sustainable social change aren’t being developed in foundation boardrooms. Rather, they’re global majority funding practices emerging from communities that have long understood how to respond to crises without waiting for strategic plans, how to mobilize resources with minimal bureaucracy, and how to center the leadership of those closest to the challenges they face.

Read the full article about global majority funding practices by Jessyca Dudley, Yvonne Moore, and Radhika Nayar at Nonprofit Quarterly.