2017 was not a year TWI could have withstood alone. Thankfully we didn’t have to. Figuratively and often quite literally, we got by with a little help from our friends. Grantmaking Loves Company Like many social justice foundations, our board immediately authorized a rapid response mechanism post-election. We made a set of grants that represent many…
Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared on the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s blog: http://cep.org/putting-trust-center-foundation-work. As a foundation that sees relationships as a key component of philanthropy and social change, The Whitman Institute (TWI) applauds CEP’s recent report, Relationships Matter: Program Officers, Grantees, and the Keys to Success. It may seem like common sense that grantees and funders…
Thousand Currents is an international development organization focused on the Global South. Their funding model is inherently trust-based, with an approach rooted in trusting the expertise of the leaders in the communities they serve. As part of our ongoing series featuring trust-in-practice, The Whitman Institute sat down with Deputy Director Solome Lemma to learn more…
Two years ago, when Dimple Abichandani stepped in as Executive Director of the General Service Foundation, she noticed a gap between the social justice foundation’s grantmaking processes and the type of relationship they had with their grantees. Soon after, she and the GSF staff started making changes to their practices in order to fully embody…
In December of 2016, TWI allocated $250,000 in rapid response funds to protect and build power within communities most vulnerable to the rollback of civil and human rights promised by the then new administration. Rather than create a new system, we leaned into our trust based grantmaking process to expend the $250,000 by the…