Putting Principles Into Action: How Trust-Based Philanthropy Has Influenced Our Work

I’ve been the Grants & Office Administrator at the Onion Foundation for almost three years now, and I’m incredibly grateful to be here. In this role, I work closely with the rest of the team to develop the systems and processes that shape our interactions with our grantees.

I’ve had a varied career encompassing arts administration, retail, and activism, which included four years fundraising for a community music center. So coming into the Onion Foundation, I had some notions about how foundations might act and what their role in the world could be.

By working in customer service and fundraising, for example, I came to learn the critical importance of building relationships. My experience in social justice work and organizing helped me understand that building and maintaining trust is key to transformative social change. With this background, it’s no surprise that an approach called “trust-based philanthropy” became an early touchstone and reference for me as I started this new role.

Here I am now, working in philanthropy and doing my best to live up to my own expectations. And, of course, I’m finding that there’s more nuance and complexity than I had previously understood.

The Core Principles of Trust-Based Philanthropy

While trust-based philanthropy was officially named in 2013 by funders at The Whitman Institute, the values behind the model have long been a cornerstone of socially conscious grantmaking. Many foundations across the country — including those involved in the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project advocacy initiative — have embraced the concept and its six guiding practices:

• Give multiyear, unrestricted funding

• Do the homework (i.e., take on administrative responsibilities, rather than putting them on nonprofit grant applicants)

• Simplify and streamline paperwork

• Be transparent and responsive

• Solicit and act on feedback

• Offer support beyond the check

The trust-based philanthropy movement understands that funders have a role to play in building a just and equitable society, and that it’s about more than writing checks. The movement encourages funders to build trusting — rather than controlling — relationships with grantees, shifting power to put equity and mutual accountability at the forefront of their collaborative work. These values immediately resonated with me.

At the Onion Foundation, our Arts and Environment Program Officers manage large portfolios of grantees, which poses challenges to building relationships with all of our grantees and applicants as deeply as we’d like. That said, the trust-based philanthropy model has been an important influence on our work and the subject of many robust discussions that have shaped our values and internal practices.

We take very seriously the notion that how we interact with our nonprofit partners, including the processes we use to administer grants, is part of how we present ourselves to the world and make an impact in our communities. Therefore, we believe that our systems and processes should align with our values. We know that, as a foundation dedicated to making a difference in Maine, we will move closer to our goal of systemic equity if we build trusting, positive relationships with the organizations that have the best sense of how change can and should take place.

Embedding Practices Into Our Daily Work

Foundations need to shift two things to truly put the trust-based philanthropy approach into action: culture and practices. Without building the organizational culture to support this work, logistical improvements can only go so far. Likewise, cultural shifts have to show up in tangible practices that make a difference in the grantmaking process.

At the Onion Foundation, our work started with deep internal reflection on our values, policies, processes, and practices. While working on our organizational culture is an ongoing effort, it’s already led to new practices that are helping us operationalize a trust-based approach.

Making Time for Conversation and Investing in Relationships

We understand that there’s a power dynamic in philanthropy that can make reaching out to foundation staff intimidating, so we actively encourage applicants and grantees to connect with us directly. Our program officers share their calendars online through Calendly, allowing nonprofit teams to easily schedule meetings with them. Grantees can schedule short meetings to talk about new developments and receive guidance on reports and new proposals.

Last year, our program officers held more than 200 check-in meetings with current or potential grantees, not including site visits and informal conversations. I’ve heard directly from many of our grantees how valuable this time with our staff can be. And our program officers benefit from hearing directly about grantees’ priorities, their analysis of the context in which they’re working, the challenges they’re confronting, and how the foundation can help.

Offering Support “Beyond the Check”

In applications, reports, and our conversations with grantees, we often see patterns that suggest opportunities to support individual organizations and strengthen the arts and environment sectors more generally. In the last two years, we’ve added internal support to give our program officers extra time and flexibility to offer a range of capacity-building initiatives. With this support, we’ve:

• Built and launched a new, accessible website, which more prominently features grantees and their stories

• Made our grant application process and grantee resources more accessible to people with disabilities

• Invited five other Maine funders to join us in commissioning a study on the state of fiscal sponsorship in Maine, which we hope will lead to greater appreciation for and investment in fiscal sponsorships

• Identified capacity-building as a core strategy of our Arts Program in 2023 and provided a capacity assessment tool and financial training to multiple grantees

• Sponsored underwriting on public radio to publicize our grantees’ upcoming events

Communicating Clearly and Responding to Feedback

We take time and care to develop clear instructions on our grant applications and reporting forms — both within the documents and on our website. I stand at the ready to answer any questions that arise about our grant administration portal, and program officers are quick to respond to substantive questions. With uncomplicated and accessible guidance, applicants better understand what we’re seeking. We have worked to streamline the application and reporting processes, asking only for information we cannot find elsewhere and truly need to assess applications.

On every application and report form, we’ve included a section for grantees and applicants to provide feedback about our work, the process, and how we’re doing as a partner. We’re grateful to receive this feedback, and our board members and staff come together to review these insights to gain a real-time understanding of how applicants and grantees perceive us and our processes. From there, our team identifies steps to address the problems applicants and grantees put forward. As the grants administrator, I plan to increase the regularity with which we review and incorporate feedback in 2025.

An Ongoing Effort

At the Onion Foundation, we have high expectations for ourselves and want to use our resources to truly advance our grantees’ priorities. We’re individually and collectively working to align our initiatives — and the way we do our work — with our values. Nevertheless, we know that we won’t always get it right. We’ll continue to listen carefully to and learn from our nonprofit partners, benefiting from their experience and remaining open to doing things differently.

I know that other foundations in Maine and beyond are on similar journeys and that their approaches may look quite different from ours. I continue to seek out conversations with them and encourage our grantees to reach out to me or the rest of the Onion Foundation staff. I look forward to hearing from you.