We are living in a time of transformative change in the philanthropic field. In 2016, I was starting to feel the acceleration of this change and created a future of philanthropy model that envisioned a tomorrow where foundation processes could act quickly when a community crisis struck by streamlining their application and evaluation systems to focus on doing the most good in a community as soon as possible. Because of the accelerating forces of the …

In the weeks following the FTX collapse, and the subsequent breakdown of Sam Bankman-Fried’s reputation, some of the scrutiny has turned to Effective Altruism (EA) – the philanthropic movement that Bankman-Fried championed for years (evidently only for good PR). Everything from EA’s philosophical underpinnings to the causes it supports have been questioned following the loss of the movement’s most significant donor. Instead of asking whether to condemn or support the movement, however, the more crucial …

As the United States celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day on 16 January, it is a moment to look back on the ways a broad-based, pro-democracy movement came together to push for civil rights and racial justice. Looking ahead to 2023, the need to galvanize such a large-scale, diverse movement is as crucial as ever. The alarming rates of democratic decline and rising authoritarianism around the world are well documented. Philanthropists can find inspiration from …

It’s a classic tale of the trajectory of a nongovernmental organization (NGO): a well-meaning organization grows rapidly, crafts a beautiful strategy, and has all the right subject-matter expertise in place, only to realize late in the game that it neglected to build the systems and processes necessary to support its mission and vision. Today, a similar phenomenon is evident in the philanthropic and international development sectors as they too evolve and mature. In recent years, …