Introducing Danielle LaJoie
2/22/2023
The Trust-Based Philanthropy Project was thrilled to welcome Danielle LaJoie to our team in January 2023 as Senior Manager of Partnerships & Programming. Danielle brings a long history in philanthropy to the role, dating back to her youth! Get to know her more in the Q & A below.
What has your journey been to this work?
I grew up in a small industrial town on the westside of Michigan. There are community foundations all over the state, and many of them have youth funds that set aside a pot of money for young people to make decisions on how that money should be spent in the community. I got to sit on one of those funds, which was huge for me as a kid! I grew up with low socioeconomic status and this was the first time I was around real resources to serve my community. That early experience in philanthropy exposed me to the problematic power structures of the sector, which means I’ve been thinking about trust-based approaches to this work since I was a teenager.
I followed my interest in philanthropy through college, where I got connected to the Council of Michigan Foundations (CMF). That led to deeper work with community foundations, where I got to support more youth funds and also join the CMF board eventually. At that point, I had learned a lot about community foundations and decided to work with organizations where I could explore family philanthropy. I learned about the tensions between family legacy and flexibility in giving to community in this space. Hungry to expand and deepen my learning in the sector, I eventually went for my Master of Public Administration degree where I got to study philanthropy as a byproduct and a symptom of wealth inequality and colonialism.
Eventually the job search took me to Groundworks New Mexico, which convened both funders and nonprofit organizations in order to shift sector-wide practices. That work had obvious intersections to trust-based philanthropy, so it seemed like a very natural fit when this position opened up.
What aspects of philanthropy are you most excited to address in the context of the trust-based philanthropy movement?
I’m committed to continuing to investigate and disrupt the power dynamics that exist in our sector. The wealth inequality and hoarding of resources that make traditional philanthropy possible also create the condition for inequitable relationships to exist. Trust-based philanthropy and other community-led participatory grantmaking efforts are a way for us to address those previous harms and shift power back into the hands of the community.
What does trust mean to you in the context of this work?
I’ve been in funder spaces where grantees saw me as the funder. I've also been in nonprofit spaces where funders saw me as the grantee. From both sides, trust looks like vulnerability to me. And I don’t know if it’s a chicken or an egg thing: when you're vulnerable, it helps create trust. And when you have trusted relationships, you can be more vulnerable. Either way, acknowledging what can sometimes be messy helps get funders and grantees to a place where they’re problem-solving together.
Can you share a little about your vision and hopes for the future of trust-based philanthropy?
I see grantees and funders being thought partners together in a truly equal way, in a way that they haven’t had the chance to in the past. I see funders getting out of the way of grantees so they can do their work with more ease, which ultimately means more change happens in the world. And, in this peer-to-peer movement, I see funders drawing other funders to the approach and helping them see how it can deepen their mission.