All About Our Chatbot: AskTBP

Have a question about putting trust-based philanthropy into practice? AskTBP.

Trust-based philanthropy can look different in different contexts. Whether you’re brand new to it or working through a specific challenge, you can tell our TBP chatbot what’s happening and get tailored guidance, drawn directly from our extensive library of knowledge and resources.

FAQs

  • Bring us a question, a challenge, or something you’ve been wondering about. 

    For example:

    • Our foundation wants to simplify our application process. Where should we start?

    • How can we evaluate our impact in a way that satisfies our board without over-burdening our grantees?

    • I am all about TBP, but my board keeps asking tough questions and I’m having a hard time making the case to them. How can I help them get it?

    • How can I build effective relationships when I manage a portfolio of 50+ grantees?

    • As an intermediary funder, how can I be trust-based when my own funders require tons of data and reporting that needs to come from my grantees?

    • We are thinking of doing wellness grants. How can we make sure the process is trust-based even if these grants are technically earmarked for a specific purpose?

    You don’t need to know exactly what you’re looking for. Start with the question or challenge in front of you and see where the conversation takes you.

  • AskTBP can be used by anyone who is curious about trust-based philanthropy. 

    Since it draws heavily from our webinars and tools designed for institutional funders, it will be most relevant and useful to people working at foundations and grantmaking organizations, including program officers, executives, trustees, and operations staff.

    It can also be useful for philanthropy consultants, philanthropy-serving organizations, individual donors who want to better understand trust-based approaches, and even nonprofits curious about how to engage their funders in conversations about trust-based philanthropy.

  • We developed AskTBP because there is a lot of nuance when it comes to operationalizing trust-based philanthropy, and a lot of specific questions can come up along the journey. 

    Even though we have a vast library of resources on our website, we know it isn’t always easy to find the answer you’re looking for. Our goal with AskTBP is to make answers more accessible and more customized, so you can get real-time guidance as you work through questions or challenges.

  • This is the only chatbot dedicated to learning about, exploring, and adopting trust-based philanthropy — with information that comes directly from the founders of this movement and the practitioners who have put the principles into practice. 

    The main source material includes Trust-Based Philanthropy Project’s publications, articles, webinar transcripts, and funder stories. And since all of our tools have been created with input from a range of funders, you can consider this a crowdsourced knowledge bank from the leading thinkers and practitioners of trust-based philanthropy.

A Few Things to Know Before Using AskTBP

  • AskTBP was built using Anthropic’s Claude. 

  • We recognize that using artificial intelligence comes with important questions and trade-offs, including environmental impact, the potential for inaccurate information, and ultimately the role technology should play in work that is human, relational, and built on trust. 

  • AskTBP is intended to support learning and reflection — it does not replace your own judgment or professional or legal advice.

We’re approaching AskTBP as a tool to test, learn from, and continually evaluate. For this reason, your conversations with the chatbot will be saved and may be reviewed to help the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project understand how the tool is being used, evaluate its performance, and improve it over time to ensure it’s helping advance our mission to make trust-based philanthropy more accessible. We also welcome your feedback as we learn.

Chat transcripts may be reviewed by authorized members of the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project team, including our staff, consultants supporting this work, and authorized technical partners for these purposes. Please do not share confidential, personally identifiable, proprietary, or otherwise sensitive information with AskTBP. 

By using AskTBP, you acknowledge that you understand the information above, including how conversation data may be reviewed and used to evaluate and improve the tool.

AskTBP should be one resource among many for your trust-based journey.

Trust-based philanthropy is fundamentally relational. It asks us to build relationships and practice self-awareness, reflection, and humility. While AI can make information and guidance more accessible, it is not intended to replace the type of human interaction that is vital to this work. We hope that AskTBP is one resource, among many, on your learning journey.