Philanthropy provides risk-tolerant capital in a way that government and business cannot. It is a necessary ingredient to solving the world’s social and environmental problems. A new wave of giving that can propel projects forward with equity and justice at the fore is increasingly contingent on funders not only donating their financial resources but also embedding the values of trust-based approaches into their overall strategy. This trend report describes five key trends for U.S. philanthropy in 2022:
The trends:
- Funders have increased their giving over the last two years, sometimes significantly, but growth in nominal giving hides the fact that funders are donating less of what they earn
- Trust-based philanthropy found its foothold in the midst of crisis; today, funders are sustaining and evolving those principles
- Funders are doing more to prioritize racial and social justice in their giving, yet BIPOC voices remain too marginalized in decision-making
- Funders are realizing philanthropy’s potential to support climate interventions, but their actual investments are incommensurate to the challenge
- Collaborative approaches are gaining momentum and proving their impact, even among institutional funders; collective investing models adopt a power sharing approach, taking learnings from individual giving as well as trust- and place-based initiatives
