Building Toward, For, and Beyond This Moment

Reflections on five years of impact at the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project

In January 2025, the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project officially marked its five-year anniversary. Leading up to this milestone, we had spent months reviewing and analyzing data to assess our impact and tell our story. The data was affirming. It showed us that we’ve built a veritable movement – with wide-spanning reach, recognition, and impact toward making trust-based philanthropy the standard of practice for effective philanthropy.

But by the time we had our 5-year impact report ready for release, our team had shifted all of our attention toward the growing threats and uncertainties facing nonprofits and communities around the United States. We had conversations with our nonprofit friends, funder allies, and philanthropy-serving partners. Virtually everyone we talked to remarked on a troubling trend: the lack of coordinated response from philanthropy, despite the fact that 90% of nonprofit leaders were anticipating a negative or uncertain impact as a result of the political climate.

Building on our learnings from our impact report, we decided to tap into our people power and relationships to mobilize a collective commitment for trust-based action. So we teamed up with our longtime partners, NCFP and GEO, to launch the Meet the Moment call to action for funders to move in solidarity with nonprofits, mobilize money, and nurture possibility. To date, nearly 150 funders have signed on, with the pledge cited by the Chronicle of Philanthropy as a key driver of increased payouts and responsive action coming from philanthropy.

None of this would have been possible without the groundwork we laid over the last five years, the hard work of our staff and steering committee, and the dedication of our partners and incredible network of trust-based ambassadors and advocates. We are happy to share this retrospective of the last five years of trust-based impact: a quick look back at where we’ve been and what we’ve built, in order to help us move ahead.

What was originally conceptualized as a five-year awareness and organizing campaign has evolved into a dynamic movement, thanks to key strategies including being informed by nonprofits, using peer-to-peer organizing, remaining responsive to context, using story-based strategies, and other approaches rooted in an ethos of humility and collaboration.

Through a mix of strategic communications, educational programming, and donor organizing, the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project and our partners have helped transform the sector in myriad ways: 

Graphic from page 3 of the Impact Report. Design by Yippa.

Our work now is to continue the work of transforming our sector so that it can transform society. We are building on these milestones, evolving our role and adapting to and deepening our work where it can have the greatest impact over the next five, ten, and fifty years, continuing to plant seeds and see where new blooms rise. 

Special thanks to Chantias Ford, our Director of Programs & Strategic Learning, who led the bulk of research, analysis, project management, and design oversight for this report.

Shaady Salehi is Co-Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Trust Based Philanthropy Project.