Returning from the Next Frontiers conference thoughts were flowing around my mind at such a pace it was difficult to catch even one. Yet, of all the provocations and calls to action I heard during the day, the most pressing one for me was that the time is now. For too long philanthropy has constrained itself to the limitations of other avenues of change. Philanthropy is not the market, the academy, politics or diplomacy. It is a tool of all of its own. Only when philanthropy embraces the unique qualities and tools at its disposal, can philanthropy have the full impact in accelerating social change and contributing to a better tomorrow.

“This work cannot and should not be an intellectual study” – Nwamaka Agbo

During the day, speakers highlighted the ways philanthropy has tried to replicate the distance of academia, positioning itself as distinct from the social movements and changemakers it exists to fund. We were reminded that the money should follow the movement and not direct it. We reflected on the ways market principles – such as the avoidance of financial risk and perpetual growth – have caused harm and led to investment portfolios that are incongruent with transformative funding programmes. We explored ideas around sunsetting and radical governance models that truly redistribute power at its core. We were also reminded that philanthropy is not politics, even though funding relationships with state bodies can complicate this and cause tensions, philanthropy need not be driven by opinion polls and approval ratings. Philanthropy is an avenue all of its own.

Once we accept that philanthropy is a distinct tool, we can use the agility, convening power, and potential for experimentation to contribute to establishing new futures. However, this requires us to create new frames. New frames are about more than using different words to describe the same principles. Instead, we have the opportunity to craft new concepts to shape our present and future. Our current frames borrow metrics of success from academia, the markets and politics. This has created a dynamic wherein philanthropy craves measurable impact.

“We are led by a North Star, which is impact.” – Maurice Mitchell

Philanthropy’s attachment to quantitative and measurable impact is a natural consequence of a Western knowledge culture that craves certainty. However, by remaining entrenched in this, the sector upholds fundamental pillars of our current system. The focus of impact leads to perverse incentives and lines of accountability that centre trustees, legal and extractive financial systems; while decentring communities. The outcome of this is that the motivations of funders can be incongruent with the changes being asserted. Instead, there is more care about perception than the contribution being made.

“Spirals of presentation and performance.” – Maurice Mitchell

When philanthropy opens itself to new knowledge, approaches and conceptions of change, we are capable of further experimentation and exploration. In this space of emergence, who knows what is possible?  ‘The State of Funding Change: How should we act, and how should we be together?’ session, in particular, highlighted that as a collective, humanity will innovate in order to survive. In this moment, we have no option but to end the inequity, exploitation and extraction that has come to characterise modernity. In order to survive, we are going to have to try something new. Philanthropy has the unique opportunity to accelerate and resource this change. 

“Life wants to live” – Indy Jahar

So, the Next Frontiers event left us all with a strong call to action. When philanthropy is self-aware and critical, it has the opportunity to accelerate the work of social movements and test innovations that offer us options for new futures. However, in order to achieve this, we have to pick up the mantle. In this pursuit of a different approach to philanthropy, a 21st Century approach to philanthropy, we have to acknowledge that the sector is not an abstract being with a mind of its own. Philanthropy is all of us working within, or engaging with the sector. We have the opportunity to do things differently. It is up to us to take it.

Maxine Thomas-Asante (She/Her), Senior Social Justice Consultant, Ten Years’ Time