Fluxx | Technology news for grantmakers

As we round out the first quarter of 2023, we need to consider economic, social, and technical currents impacting foundations and grant managers. The external environment weighs heavily on operations and financial choices, setting the course for a challenging year. Here are four trends affecting charitable growth in 2023.

Another fantastic year of Untapped philanthropy has come to a close! This year, the conversations felt charged, and the industry leaders we spoke with all seemed eager to support progress for our industry. And while our podcast tries to cover a few key topics equally — the future of philanthropy, technology, policy, and capacity building efforts for grantees — this season our conversations seemed to always come back to trust-based philanthropy. 

We explored how we might implement trust-based philanthropy, learned from the leaders who worked to define this movement for funders, and took an honest look at the prevailing power imbalances of nonprofits and foundations. These conversations left us feeling inspired and ready to make a change too. 

Untapped Season Finale: A new host + fresh topics: what's next for season 3 of Untapped Philanthropy

It’s impossible to discuss the giving landscape in India today without acknowledging the drastic economic reforms that made it possible. In 1991, India adopted a new industrial policy to liberalize the economy, increase employment opportunities, boost production and productivity, and encourage foreign investments. The policy substantially deregulated the industrial sector. Today, India’s economy is one of the fastest growing in the world. And the profitability of the last 30 years has led to immense new wealth creation. Now, much of that new wealth is looking to give back, and India has seen a sharp rise in new philanthropists and donors. One organization looking to support these donors (and communities across the country) is Dasra.

Dasra is an intermediary and strategic philanthropy foundation in India's multi-stakeholder development ecosystem. Its goal is to help India achieve its sustainable development goals by 2023 by helping funders give more strategically to vulnerable communities. When the pandemic struck India, the team led by this week’s podcast guest and Dasra co-founder and Partner, Deval Sanghavi, sprang into action and employed swift and effective trust-based philanthropy practices to support communities throughout India.

Most of us working in tech are familiar with the term ‘fail fast.’ It’s a philosophy that values extensive testing and incremental development of an idea or process. Those who are told to fail fast are also instructed to cut losses the second testing reveals something isn't working, keep working, and pivot to a new idea.

The core belief is that if you’re willing to fail, you are willing to learn. Why? Because, in many instances, we learn more from our failures than our successes. Startups have committed to this philosophy fully. This process has propelled many companies to unicorn status far faster than previous incumbents. But can the same concept apply to philanthropy — an industry rife with multi-year studies, detailed reporting, and methodical approaches?

Feminist movements are under immense pressure. On June 24th, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the right to an abortion that had been upheld for decades.
Many advocates and feminist leaders weren’t surprised by the decision and have warned that additional restrictive policies and laws will likely be passed. These restrictive laws threatening the health and safety of birthing people correspond with a spike in misogynistic content distributed across TikTok and other social platforms. The superior algorithms of these platforms compiled with a younger, more digitally savvy audience has made it possible for these videos to spread (billions of views within days) at an alarmingly fast rate.

But this rise in hateful vitriol has led to pushback and progress as well. Self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate was recently banned from Meta platforms, Twitter, and TikTok. Scotland became the first country to offer feminine sanitary products for free nationwide. According to NPR, “New Zealand and Kenya distribute products for free in public schools” as well.

What’s #FixtheForm? And why did this international Grant Advisor campaign gain so much traction in a few short months? All this and more is revealed in this month's Untapped Philanthropy episode!

Untapped Philanthropy Season 2, Episode 6: What can we do to Fix the Form?

It’s no secret that millions of mission-related hours are lost every year navigating cumbersome grant application processes. To identify the needed top changes, a survey was launched by Laura Solomons, a fundraiser for a social mobility charity and former Trustee and Chair of a grant-giving foundation, and Kari Aanestad, the Co-Director of GrantAdvisor.org and the Associate Director at the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits. In less than four weeks it received 500 responses from grantseekers across nine countries, “representing every shape, size, and activity area of the nonprofit sector.”

The Human Genome Project was an international scientific research project working to determine the base pairs that make up human DNA in order to sequence all of the human genome. And no, Untapped Philanthropy hasn’t suddenly pivoted from discussions on philanthropy to science. But we thought it might be helpful to remind you of the famous Human Genome Project because this week’s philanthropy guest is taking a similarly scientific approach to philanthropy.

The Impact Genome Project has taken a similar approach to philanthropy by analyzing the DNA of impact programs to determine what is and isn't working.

This week we are thrilled to have the Executive Director of the Center of Impact Sciences at the University of Chicago and the co-founder of the Impact Genome Project, Jason Saul on the podcast to tell us about his work, and most importantly — share more about the Project’s integration with Fluxx!

Once you've listened to this great episode, be sure to catch our follow-up episode on this topic with Geneva Richard from Move 92 - How can we implement trust-based philanthropy?

Additionally, check out our recent session from FluxxCon on how 1892 Consulting and Wildcard Giving brought Trust Based Philanthropy to life with Fluxx,  reducing application barriers and building on interpersonal relationships leading to an on going trust and respect between grantors and grantees. Watch it here

The Trust-Based Philanthropy Project is a five-year peer-to-peer funder initiative designed to address the inherent power imbalances between foundations and nonprofits. It’s an initiative built around action and immediacy. A quick perusal of the team’s website will immediately bring you to the six practices of trust-based grantmaking which the team hopes will not only break down the buzz-y term of trust-based philanthropy into actionable steps, but also encourage funders to make immediate equitable changes.

The work of the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project is aligned with our work and mission here at Fluxx. We believe that it’s not only possible — but also essential — for technologists to partner with philanthropists in order to build pathways to deeper and more trusting partnerships between funders and grantees.

That’s why we are especially thrilled to share more about this week’s Untapped Philanthropy podcast featuring a conversation between Fluxx co-founder, Kerrin Mitchell, and Executive Director, Trust-Based Philanthropy Project, Shaady Salehi.