Insights From Our 2023 Grantmaker Survey

In January 2023, we launched the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project’s second annual grantmaker survey. Through the survey, we heard from a diverse array of grantmaking professionals at various types of funding institutions. Respondents represented a variety of demographic identities, locations, and levels in their trust-based journey.  

The data illuminated some key findings, including the top motivations for pursuing trust-based philanthropy, organizational shifts to trust-based practices and operations, and contributing factors for organizational change.  Through this research, we have a deeper understanding of how trust-based philanthropy is being explored, practiced, and embodied, and what funders think will help continue to sustain and grow this approach from the margins to the mainstream.

While the survey reveals that organizational change happens in unique individualistic ways, there are similar themes around what is helping to make, and sustain, these shifts. We were humbled to hear that the community that’s been built here through the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project’s peer-to-peer network, listserv, resources, and programs as being centrally important for funders building and bolstering a new path forward.