Global crises of the past two years have yielded at least one silver lining for nonprofits: They have accelerated a movement among grantmakers to match the duration and flexibility of their funding to the arc and demands of change. Such a shift couldn’t come at a more important time for organizations addressing acute threats to climate, health, our social fabric, and world democracy.
The top accelerators of change that surfaced in interviews, an in-depth survey, and four focus group discussions with chief executives at nonprofits and funders were the following:
- Getting clear on values
- Listening to feedback from grantees
- Adopting an equity lens on grantmaking
- Responding to group or peer influence
- Reacting to global and political crises
In this article, authors examine each accelerator, ways that leaders can harness them, and their overall implications for redefining foundation roles. Importantly, the findings calibrate the observations of grant providers with the experience of organizations doing the work. (modified author introduction)