A trust-based culture—one that prioritizes power-sharing, dialogue, transparency, and learning—is essential to cultivating relationships of trust within organizations. Simply put, being a trust-based organization requires there to be trust within your organization—among staff, between staff and board, and between the board and the CEO. When this trust is broken, or if it is never built to begin with, it can seep into the external aspects of your work with the potential of threatening your relationships, credibility, and reputation.
Trust-based philanthropy is anchored in an understanding of power and privilege, historical and systemic racism and structural oppression, and how these shape people’s realities in profoundly different ways. As grantmakers, we have a responsibility to confront the reality that philanthropy originated from and has often contributed to systemic inequities, both in the ways wealth is accumulated and its dissemination is controlled. While these discussions may be challenging and difficult, this type of self-reflection is fundamental to the work of trust-based philanthropy. As individuals and institutions, we must be willing to recognize historical trauma and systemic power, examine our own relationship to power and money, and be willing to give up some of that power and control in a spirit of service and collaboration with those who are closer to the issues at hand.
Trust-based philanthropy encourages us to rethink our notions of traditional philanthropic roles, which tend to prioritize transactions over relationships. In fact, a trust-based approach encourages us to understand our roles as partners working in service of nonprofits and communities. Traditional Philanthropy has institutionalized and perpetuated harmful tropes about funders as experts and nonprofits as needy people who need to be held accountable. This has been perpetuated institutionally through our grantmaking practices, but also in less obvious ways, such as job descriptions, theories of change, program descriptions, and the language we use to describe our work.
In 2019 Stockton SEED was the first ever Mayoral led city-wide guaranteed income pilot in the country, eventually leading to the creation of Mayor’s for Guaranteed Income (MGI). Now numbering over 100+ cities around the country, MGI helped catalyze the newly formed Counties for Guaranteed Income (CGI), which will work at the county level across the country to ensure that all Americans have an income floor.
Californians will head to the polls to decide on a ballot measure that could drive more money to education.
In philanthropy, we sometimes overlook or deprioritize the interpersonal skills required to do this work well. This includes the ability to connect dots, show up in an emotionally intelligent way, listen actively and empathically, and know when to get out of the way. It also requires a clear understanding of power, and how power imbalances between funders and grantee partners are exacerbated by race, gender, and class inequities. Cultivating and advancing effective interpersonal skills requires practitioners to bring self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and willingness to take multiple perspectives into account.
The Rapid Response Fund for Movement Building provides small, one-time grants to frontline grassroots organizations for new projects.
California is in the midst of another historic wildfire season. Already, several major and lesser-known fires have destroyed communities and displaced tens of thousands of residents throughout Northern California.
Join us for a webinar briefing, Major Changes in Federal Disaster Response: What Funders Need to Know, Thursday, May 29, 2025, 1-2:15pm ET. Please RSVP no later than noon ET, Tuesday, May 27, 2025.
Donations will go directly to Maui United Way to support Maui victims
Commitment to doing good means commitment to providing for the actual cost to make change happen. We’re accustomed to seeing certain expenses on a balance sheet, but others are often disguised or hidden from view in order to meet the restrictions built into grants.
The UC San Diego COVID-19 Response Discretionary Fund has been established to support our students, patients, caregivers, and community at this unprecedented moment for our university and the world.
To provide grants to Kern County nonprofit organizations serving vulnerable populations and/or those who can present a clear case of direct impact due to the medical or economic effects of the pandemic.
The Caldor Fire Fund has been established to support the families impacted by this fire, and your entire donation will go to support those families. With your support, we can help to make a difference in the lives of those who need us now more than ever.
The Emergency Response Fund is taking donations to support neighboring communities that have been impacted by the wildfires surrounding our North Tahoe Truckee region.
The El Dorado Community Foundation Community Relief Fund acts as the conduit to meet critical community needs in times of disasters. These can include assistance in housing during prolonged winter power outages, assistance with displacement in mandatory evacuations and supporting our community p
The Full Cost Project aims to shift the focus from overhead to outcomes and what good outcomes really cost.
On March 19, 2020, Senate Majority Leader McConnell proposed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act.
The LAFD Foundation is accepting funds to help purchase and replenish important Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for our firefighters + paramedics on the front lines.