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Transforming Towards Trust-Based Philanthropy: Understanding the Role of the Program Officer

As foundations across philanthropy and within our CMF community lean into trust-based philanthropy practices to transform engagement with nonprofits as partners, the Ford Foundation is sharing its reflections on how it can be successfully applied to the work of program officers.

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Across philanthropy and within our CMF community, many have leaned into trust-based philanthropy to transform engagement with nonprofits as partners.

According to the Trust Based Philanthropy Project, “trust-based philanthropy is about redistributing power in service of a healthier and more equitable nonprofit sector. This includes multi-year unrestricted funding, streamlined applications and reporting and a commitment to building relationships based on transparency, dialogue and mutual learning.”

As foundations begin the transformation towards trust-based philanthropy, the Ford Foundation is reflecting on its recently commissioned study with MilwayPLUS that finds ways for funders to accelerate more equitable grantmaking and is encouraging organizations to understand the evolving role of the program officer.

According to Shireen Zaman, program officer of Ford’s Building Institutions and Networks (BUILD) Initiative and Christopher Cardona, senior program officer of Ford’s BUILD Initiative, any serious adoption of trust-based philanthropy needs to create opportunities for program officers to spend less time on compliance and more time partnering with nonprofit partners on the journey to impact.

Zaman and Cardona share that this is a change that not only can accelerate outcomes but also allows program officers to engage with nonprofit partners more creatively and strategically. 

According to Ford, through the research, they found that leaders across nonprofits and foundations agreed on four qualities in program officers that build true partnerships with nonprofit partners.

Those four qualities include:

Elevate Nonprofit Partners as the Expert

Zaman and Cardona share that they make sure to recognize their nonprofit partners as the true experts and highlight that in their experience, inclusiveness happens when officers express curiosity about and support for a nonprofit’s entire organization, not just the parts that relate to the foundation’s strategy and goals.

Put the Nonprofit Partner in the Driver’s Seat

According to the research from MilwayPLUS, program officers who embrace a service-oriented approach with their nonprofit partners and the fields they work in will begin to shift their focus from rigid deadlines and burdensome processes and instead ask their partners what they need and how to improve the grant process.

Zaman and Cardona highlight that program officers should work to respond quickly to inquiries, using channels most accessible for nonprofit partners and ask for feedback on the process they value and how to simplify or eliminate other parts of the process.

Advocate for Equity

Program officers can play a critical role in applying and accelerating the use of an equity lens to drive funding toward leaders from historically unserved groups. According to Zaman and Cardona, program officers can actively dismantle differential grantmaking approaches and reporting requirements for leaders from underfunded communities. “We can ask tough questions about our own institutions, and back them up with data and experience,” Zaman and Cardona noted.

Connect Nonprofit Partners to Accelerate Impact

Zaman and Cardona encourage program officers to focus on ties and testimony.

They shared, “ties are about building networks across a field, introducing nonprofit partners to each other or inviting (and providing the funding for) them to participate in relevant gatherings, appear on panels and continue to connect like-minded organizations. Testimony brings program officers’ influence to bear in lifting up nonprofit partners to other funders, sometimes as part of collaborative funds, to broaden their access to additional resources.”

The Ford Foundation also highlighted the recently launched Funding for Real Change toolkit for foundation staff and trustees, building off of its research to help advance these qualities.

Several CMF members have been engaged in applying trust-based philanthropy approaches in their grantmaking.

As CMF highlighted on page 6 in our 2021 Annual Report: Together on the Journey, the Stryker Johnston Foundation (SJF), with support from Hub ONE, has reimaged its practices and grounded them in trust-based philanthropy.

Hub ONE, a collaborative of four nonprofits in Kalamazoo, began to engage funders, including SJF, in conversations around reducing barriers facing nonprofit partners.

SJF has committed to certain practices in their grantmaking, including prioritizing relationship building, transparency, accessibility to grant partners, flexibility, multi-year and unrestricted grants, feedback and partnership throughout the grant process.

“To us, trust-based philanthropy is a transparent, relationship-centered approach that prioritizes trust and ongoing partnership,” Yolonda Lavender, grant program and partnerships director at SJF said.

The Kalamazoo Community Foundation (KZCF) created a Grantmaking Guide for their current partners and those looking to partner with the community foundation. 

The guide outlines how KZCF makes funding decisions, how to overcome obstacles to funding and what partners can expect after receiving a grant. 

Want more?

Read the Ford Foundation’s full reflections on the role of the program officer and trust-based philanthropy.

Learn more about SJF’s trust-based philanthropy work in CMF’s 2021 Annual Report: Together on the Journey in CMF’s Knowledge Center.

Connect with the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project.

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