What’s Next for Philanthropy: A Look Ahead at Emerging Trends

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The compounding crises of the last several years—the health and economic emergencies of COVID-19, the widespread reckoning on racial justice, the growing political polarization and violence, and the looming threat of climate change—have marked a pivotal moment for the field of philanthropy. As we look to emerge from the pandemic, a growing sense of hope for fundamental change is accompanied by a strong pull back to the way things were.

This has led many to ask, at a moment that feels like it may be an important inflection point for the field: what’s next for philanthropy?

It’s clear that philanthropy today takes place in a context that is radically different from the environment in which many of its current models, systems, and structures were developed. Even before COVID, a range of powerful societal trends were already fundamentally altering the landscape of social change. And philanthropy–which has been insulated from such shifts outside the field in the past–has come to recognize that it is not immune to responding to these external changes. In 2020, the Monitor Institute by Deloitte launched the What’s Next for Philanthropy in the 2020s initiative to help foundations and donors of all sorts reflect on the current state of philanthropic practice and explore new possibilities, models, and interventions for the future. The research engaged more than 200 philanthropy executives, professionals, donors, board members, experts, and grantees to understand both the “Big Shifts” reshaping the field, and the emerging “Edges” of practice that show an outsized potential to change philanthropic practice.