In 2017, I was fundraising for a nonprofit organization in New York City when we received a major city grant. Years of advocacy, policy shifts, and organizing had finally pushed public dollars toward our shared vision of prioritizing building intentional relationships.

Armed with that city investment, I got to work. I knew the public dollars were a signal, not a fully resourced solution. I started building a multi-lane fundraising initiative: approaching corporations, individual donors, regional foundations, and eventually national ones. Very quickly, patterns emerged.

Many funders wanted deep ownership over our programs before they would commit. Some had former policy or instructional backgrounds and—as a result of this proximity—quickly strayed from resource mobilization into strategization. One donor asked to join our programmatic design working group before deciding whether to contribute. And across all of these groups, another similarity: none had been willing to invest in our work before we had secured government funding.

Today, nearly two decades into fundraising, as a Vice President at Borealis Philanthropy, a funding intermediary, I am struck by how often our sector talks about being in partnership with our grantee partners without considering a more meaningful pursuit: being in intentional relationship—interacting in ways that honor our mutuality, interdependence, shared goals, and humanity.

I often hear from nonprofit leaders that what they want most isn’t donor proximity to their work, but clarity and understanding. Not more meetings, but fewer hoops, prioritizing intentional relationships. They want funders who trust them enough to let them lead, and who show up with curiosity rather than conditions.

To be in intentional relationship with our frontline partners is to do all this and more. It is to accept that difference is not dysfunction, and that alignment does not require sameness. It is to understand that our role is resourcing, not control; our responsibility is stewardship, not authorship. And it is to act with courage, funding what is emerging and untested, not waiting for that which has already been proven.

As we begin a new year together—one strife, as always, with promise and possibility—here are five mindsets and practices that I believe our sector must undo in order to build authentic, more trusting and loving relationships with our movement partners.

Read the full article about intentional relationships in philanthropy by Sadé Dozan at PEAK Grantmaking.