This is first in a series of posts in which I will revisit some of the big questions for philanthropy discussed in a post published in the fall of 2022.

The four years since the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a standstill have seen unprecedented change in philanthropy. Struck by how much had changed, I wrote a post in the fall of 2022 laying out — and sharing my thoughts on — seven big questions facing big philanthropy.

I want to return to these questions to consider what we now know about answers, and, perhaps, add a few more questions to the mix. I’ll do that in a series of posts in the coming months.

For now, let me start by addressing the first question I posed: Will the changes in how foundations and donors support nonprofits be sustained — and implemented thoughtfully?

My answers? Yes, the changes are being sustained and, mostly yes, they have been implemented thoughtfully. Still, I worry about the tendency to dumb discussions of philanthropic practice down to simplistic binaries.

But let me start with the first part of the question. We know a lot more than we did even in 2022, especially when it comes to foundations. There is now a considerable body of evidence that many of the shifts in practice on the part of foundations in response to the pandemic have, indeed, been sustained. What started as a situational adaptation — and what many worried would be just a blip — has become a sustained shift toward more streamlined processes and the provision of more unrestricted support. Indeed, we see evidence that, at many grantmaking institutions, changes in practice continue.

We have documented this through extensive research based on foundation self-reporting and, perhaps more powerfully, nonprofits’ direct experiences. On the latter front, we see in our Grantee Perception Report (GPR) dataset that grantmakers have streamlined their processes, leading nonprofits to spend fewer hours on proposal creation and reporting. They have also increased their provision of general operating support, though it’s still more the exception than the rule.

Moreover, in our State of Nonprofits 2023 report last year, we reported, among other findings, that shifts in foundation practice appeared to be continuing even well after the pandemic. We noted that “many nonprofit leaders report an increase in trust from funders” and that a majority “are experiencing changed practices, such as streamlined applications and reporting, removal of restrictions, and receipt of multi-year funding from foundations.” Four in 10 reported increased offering of multiyear support from their foundation funders over the preceding year.

We are currently analyzing just-collected data for our State of Nonprofits 2024 report, due out at the end of May, to see the extent to which nonprofits continue to see and experience change in funders’ practices.

The trend toward more widespread adoption of approaches that research has shown to better support nonprofits and their effectiveness is hugely positive and long overdue, in my view, and is likely to contribute to more impact on pressing issues. It’s now clear that 2020 led, for many foundations, to a kind of philanthropic reboot. My hope is that this change is sustained, deepened, and broadened. The shifts in practice I have described here are crucial, but likely represent just the beginning of the common default settings that can use re-thinking (others that come to mind include how goals and strategies are developed and who sits on foundation boards).

Read the full article about big questions for philanthropy by Phil Buchanan at The Center for Effective Philanthropy.