How might philanthropy change over the next ten years? 

The What’s Next for Philanthropy in the 2020s initiative engaged more than 200 philanthropy executives, professionals, donors, board members, experts, and grantees to look for possible answers to this question. In many of the conversations, we heard exciting ideas about how philanthropy could evolve over the coming decade.

What if, for example, philanthropy was optimized for agility and innovation while focusing less on meticulous processes and closely defined outcomes? What if funders set up community “accountability councils” instead of just “advisory councils?” What if foundations shared their endowments with historically marginalized populations to truly begin building assets in those communities?

Other leaders we spoke with were more circumspect about whether philanthropy will significantly change. They noted that the field is insulated from many of the forces that drive adaptation in other industries and circumstances. Permanent endowments, strong long-term investment returns, and massive wealth creation have buffered philanthropy against financial pressures faced by many grantees and communities. The Tax Reform Act of 1969 cemented the legal and regulatory framework for foundations, and many funders in the U.S. remain broadly governed by those same rules five decades later.

Sustained public critique has the power to change the field, but it’s hard to know what will actually stick. A brief skim of the 25,000 articles that assert philanthropy “must” or “needs to” do something shows that most critiques fade away over time. With relatively low financial, regulatory, and public pressure, “what’s next for philanthropy” usually mirrors what has always been.

Yet while philanthropy is often insulated from change, the past 18 months have shown that it is not necessarily immune. The COVID-19 pandemic and growing demands for racial justice have spurred many funders to adapt to a changing context. Decades of entrenched practices – from spending rates to grantee reporting requirements to major programming decisions – changed in a rapid period for many funders.

Over the next decade, we expect a handful of powerful social, economic, and political trends and forces to put similar pressure on funders to change. We’ve identified seven “Big Shifts,” ranging from climate emergencies to income inequality to a shifting social compact, all of which have the potential to create a new context for the work of philanthropy.

Alongside these shifts — and in many cases, in response to them — funders are continuously experimenting with both new and rediscovered ideas. And those practices that are particularly well aligned with how the world is changing will have an outsized potential to grow. Our research has surfaced four of these key “Edges” in philanthropy that can ride the momentum of the Big Shifts and scale in a way that will allow them to influence — or even overtake — the core practices of philanthropy over time. These Edges are:

  • Rethinking Philanthropy’s Role
  • Balancing Power
  • Catalyzing Leverage
  • (Re)designing the Enterprise

Read the full article about the future of philanthropy by Justin Marcoux, Gabriel Kasper, and Jennifer Holk at The Center for Effective Philanthropy.