reflection

Screenshot of TWI trustees on a video call

(Re) Centering love for people in philanthropy

By June 2, 2022

Jamie Allison is Executive Director of the Walter & Elise Haas Fund and has served on the board of trustees of The Whitman Institute since 2014. I have worked in philanthropy for two decades and have been honored to lead the Walter & Elise Haas Fund (W&EHF) for just over four years. For over eight…

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Spend-Out as a Marathon, Not a Sprint

By August 11, 2020

In 2015, I wrote a reflection as I concluded my first year as a funder, a timestamp in my life that goes something like this: pre-baby, pre-Trump, pre-wildfires, pre-COVID, pre-George Floyd-inspired acceleration of racial reckoning. At that time, I was preoccupied with how to keep my ego from inflating as a side effect of becoming…

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Our Spend-out: What’s Changed, What’s Next

By and June 22, 2020

When we last wrote a reflection on TWI’s spend out, we lifted up our uncertainty and vulnerability as we looked to 2022 as well as our commitment to being transparent about the journey ahead. Here we are, over a year later, and uncertainty and vulnerability remain constant companions – as they are for just about…

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Permission to Pause

By March 18, 2020

In the past week, I’ve marveled at how swiftly my non-profit and funder colleagues have adapted to the drastically changed conditions of our lives. Complex, in-person events were seamlessly hosted on virtual platforms in what seemed like a 24-hour pivot. We are all now wizards of Zoom, Blue Jeans, Skype, and other technologies for virtual…

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Balancing Great Relationships and Great Expectations

By September 12, 2019

What makes for great relationships between funders and their nonprofit partners? We have always believed that it starts with respect, authenticity, and honesty across power differentials in ways that build trust over time. In fact, we have often written about ways to bridge power divides by being proactive, relational funders who don’t create conditions where…

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