Hewlett is committed to contributing to an effective philanthropic sector and has been making grants toward that goal — supporting knowledge, collaboration, and adaptation — for nearly 25 years. These grants start with a core belief that healthy infrastructure for the philanthropic sector is critical for people, communities, and the planet to thrive. We have supported philanthropic infrastructure in its broadest sense, including data and information, philanthropic tool development, peer-engagement platforms, policy, narrative and storytelling, and more.
As we look across this quarter century of effort to build and enhance an ecosystem of philanthropic infrastructure, we see that a once-nascent field has become a robust landscape of organizations and initiatives working to ensure that the sector is capable of learning, adaptation, and collaboration; uses practices that are most supportive of nonprofits and communities; and is inclusive of and responsive to the people and communities who are most impacted by its decisions. These include organizations working on research, data and analysis, journalism, peer learning, and tool development.
We also acknowledge that more progress is needed, and that the world and the philanthropic sector have changed significantly since the Philanthropy Program strategy was last updated, in 2013. In January, we launched a process to refresh the grantmaking strategy, taking a “wide lens” to explore the state of the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors and how we might deploy our $6 million grantmaking budget to best help strengthen philanthropic practice going forward.
The refresh process is rooted in Hewlett’s approach to Outcome-Focused Philanthropy and shaped by Hewlett’s Guiding Principles, as well as the Effective Philanthropy Group’s ethos of shifting power, centering people, and advancing equity. As we do with all strategy refreshes at Hewlett, we are building on what we are learning about the evolving philanthropic landscape, as well as what we have learned through our existing strategies. To date, our process has included extensive research and data analysis, a grantee survey, expert interviews, and focus groups with grantees and other organizations and partners, which have yielded rich insights about the state of the philanthropic sector and opportunities for Hewlett to employ its unique assets in encouraging a more effective and efficient sector.
I wanted to share some of the ideas we have heard from our engagement with the field thus far, which we are considering as elements of our future strategy:
Adopt a people- and nonprofit-centric vision. The Philanthropy Program previously articulated a vision of improving funder practices so that funders can achieve their goals. Hewlett’s focus on “effective philanthropy” could shift from a donor-centric toward a nonprofit- and people-centric view on philanthropy.
Double down on promoting the core practices that nonprofits say are most supportive of their work.While nonprofits report greater trust and unrestricted dollars from funders in recent sector-wide surveys, they still struggle with meeting demand, financial stability, and staffing. Shifting funder practices to offer more flexible support, over a longer period; covering true cost; and through less burdensome practices, remains critical for the impact and resilience of nonprofit work.
Work to close gaps and reduce disparity in resource distribution.Long-term data shows funder bias based on organizational characteristics like size, geography (e.g., region, urban versus rural), and demographics of organizational leadership and populations served. This concentration of funding in some places, and a disparity in others, undermines the ability of the sector as a whole to be effective.
Carefully consider our target audience.The philanthropic practices that are most supportive of nonprofits — and that will help to close gaps and disparity in terms of which organizations and communities receive funding — applies both to individual and institutional funders. We ultimately need a shift in practices from funders of all kinds to ensure strong and resilient nonprofits.
Focus on research-supported approaches to funder influence. Institutional and individual funders experience distinct barriers in evolving their philanthropic practices, though research indicates that some pathways, like peer engagement, are effective ways of engaging within both audiences.
Strategy refreshes are exciting, but also daunting — particularly because we know we will need to make hard choices about where to focus. We have also heard, during the refresh process, that we should not dilute our annual grantmaking budget. Rather, we have an opportunity to focus on a small number of things where we are best positioned to see progress, and can grow or expand our impact through collaboration with others.
We are synthesizing the feedback, assessing these tradeoffs, and finalizing a path forward. We will publicly share and begin implementing the new strategy in 2025. In the meantime, we are continuing to digest what we have heard and learned to advance our contributions to an effective philanthropic sector.
