Imagine this: A nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting sustainable agriculture in low-income areas has just launched a new program to train farmers on climate-resilient farming techniques, and they're eager to expand. After months of outreach and preparing a thorough proposal, they secure a major grant from a foundation. 

At first, it seems like a win for both parties. The nonprofit submits its quarterly reports on time, detailing the number of farmers trained and acres of land where the new farming techniques are applied. However, as the organization begins seeking guidance for growth or expressing challenges about implementing the program, the foundation asks the nonprofit to adhere to the original guidelines of the grant agreement, emphasizing the importance of meeting agreed-upon metrics. 

Soon the nonprofit feels like it's just ticking boxes to meet its funder's expectations rather than adapting its program to drive long-term positive benefits for its community. Meanwhile, the foundation simply receives the nonprofit's reports, checks the numbers, and prepares for its annual review. The relationship between the two organizations feels impersonal, rigid, and paperwork-focused rather than a collaborative effort to boost the nonprofit's long-term success. 

Does this story sound familiar? Whether you're an impact funder or an impact producer, you may have encountered this all-too-common relationship dynamic. This is why many organizations are seeking a shift toward trust-based philanthropy, allowing them to embrace collaborative, relational connections rather than transactional ones. 

In this guide, we'll walk through everything you need to know about trust-based philanthropy:

• What is Trust-Based Philanthropy?
• Best Practices for Championing Trust-Based Philanthropy
• The Role of Data and Technology in Trust-Based Philanthropy
• Examples of Trust-Based Philanthropy in Action

Making positive changes to the power dynamics between funders, nonprofit and for-profit impact producers, and the communities they serve will take a collaborative effort. Read on to learn how you can do your part to champion trust-based philanthropy!

What is Trust-Based Philanthropy? 

Let's begin by highlighting the major players in conversations about trust-based philanthropy: 

• Impact funders: These are grantmakers who give grants to nonprofits, or impact investors who support impact-driven for-profit organizations. 
• Impact producers: These organizations are either nonprofits or for-profit organizations focused on creating a positive social impact. 
• The broader community: This term includes everyone affected by the work of impact funders and producers, such as nonprofit beneficiaries or for-profit consumers. 

Here's how it all comes together: Trust-based philanthropy is an approach in which impact funders and producers work to overcome the normal power imbalances in philanthropy to build long-term, healthy, equitable relationships with each other and their broader communities. 

On a philosophical level, trust-based philanthropy requires leaders in the space to:

• Acknowledge existing power imbalances
• Address deep-seated inequities at their roots
• Move toward real changes to the structures, cultures, and norms which so many philanthropic organizations operate within 
• Prioritize trust, collaboration, and transparency 

In short, this approach to philanthropy encourages those who fund impact-focused and nonprofit work not just to hand over money when asked, but also to collaborate with the organizations they support and work to increase those organizations' long-term capacity and community impact.

Take a look at this graphic that sums up this idea: 

Where did trust-based philanthropy come from? 

Trust-based philanthropy originated with a San Francisco-based foundation called the Whitman Institute, which prioritized building deep relationships with its grantees.

In recent years, the need for trust-based philanthropy has been amplified with major disruptions in society, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, and widespread political polarization. 

Key Principles of Trust-Based Philanthropy 

At UpMetrics, we're committed to promoting trust-based philanthropy as we help both impact funders and producers embrace the process of impact measurement and management (IMM).

We align ourselves with the principles set by the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project, an advocacy initiative focused on making equitable grantmaking and community accountability the standard in philanthropic work. 

These core principles are: 

1. Give multi-year, unrestricted funding. This gives impact producers the flexibility to access funds when they need them most, allows for immediate action and innovation, and encourages sustainability. 
   
   
2. Do the homework. Funders should take on the responsibility of getting to know the impact producers seeking their support.
   
   
3. Simplify and streamline paperwork. Spending time on applications and reports can distract impact producers from their important work, so making the process easier allows them to get back to what really matters. 
   
   
4. Be transparent and responsive. Prioritize open, honest, vulnerable, and transparent conversations to build trust and mutual accountability in your funder-producer relationships. 
   
   
5. Solicit and act on feedback. Empower impact producers and their communities to provide feedback and be clear on the next steps you plan to take. 
   
   
6. Offer support beyond the check. Impact funders should offer additional non-monetary support to help impact producers boost organizational leadership and capacity. 

Best Practices for Championing Trust-Based Philanthropy

For trust-based philanthropy to work, everyone in the philanthropic relationship—impact funders, impact producers, and their broader communities—must be actively involved in creating more equitable relationships. Here are best practices for each party involved: 

Impact Funders

• Offer unrestricted, flexible, multi-year grants. According to the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project, multi-year grants usually range from 2-10 years, with most falling in the 3-5 year range. You can shift your grantmaking practices over time, gradually increasing grant timelines. You can also offer one-year grants for new grantees to build a relationship before extending more funding. 
  
  
• Focus on building long-term, supportive relationships with impact creators. One of the best ways to demonstrate your long-term investment in the organizations you support is to offer capacity-building support. This might involve providing training, technical assistance, or strategic growth guidance to help an organization improve its infrastructure and effectiveness. 
   
• Prioritize open communication. Move beyond quarterly emails and reports to engaging in regular check-ins and discussions with the impact producers you support. Learn about their strengths and challenges, and celebrate milestones together. Regular discussions are also a great opportunity to co-create solutions to challenges. 

Impact Producers

• Express your needs, challenges, and successes transparently. Instead of viewing funders as merely a source of capital, open the door for deeper relationships by being transparent and communicative from the get-go. Let them know about your long-term vision for your organization, the areas in which you need support, and what is going well. This allows funders to support you in more ways than simply writing checks. 
  
  
• Demonstrate the impact of funders' dollars and strategic guidance. Working off of goals and metrics you've defined with your funders, track the impact of their financial support and strategic guidance using a robust impact measurement and management (IMM) process. To share this information with funders, create engaging impact reports that include both quantitative and qualitative insights into your organization's progress and accomplishments.  
• Engage funders in non-financial ways. You want your funders to be passionate about and involved in your important work. There's no better way to do this than to invite them to get hands-on experience! Ask investors or grantmakers to attend events, volunteer, or participate in key meetings. 

The Broader Community 

• Share impact stories with impact producers. Success stories paint a fuller picture than metrics do on their own. Embrace opportunities to share how a nonprofit's services or a for-profit organization's impact initiatives have made a difference in your life or the community you live in. These insights will be invaluable as impact producers demonstrate their effectiveness to impact funders. 
• Stay engaged in impact producers' work. Funding increases an organization's capacity to achieve its impact goals, but organizations still need on-the-ground support to make their goals a reality. Continue attending events, volunteering, or buying products or services from these organizations. 
• Provide impact producers with honest feedback. Be candid with the organizations in your community about how they're doing, highlighting the good and what could be improved. This allows impact producers to stay accountable and increase their effectiveness over time.

The Role of Data and Technology in Promoting Trust-Based Philanthropic Practices

Whether you're an impact funder or an impact producer, implementing an IMM process is one of the best ways to embrace trust-based philanthropy and lay the groundwork for relationships founded on transparency, dialogue, collaboration, and learning. 

Sharing data is essential for trust-based philanthropy. Agreed-upon goals and metrics create a shared language between funders and producers that encourages open, honest, and non-judgmental conversations, followed by collaborative action to improve long-term outcomes.

Here's a snapshot of the steps to take to measure and manage impact successfully:

1. Create an Impact Framework. An Impact Framework is a tool for helping organizations think about impact as something they can measure. At UpMetrics, we recommend you build your Impact Framework by considering your organization's long-term mission in terms of dimension of impact, then setting clear objectives under those dimensions and defining the metrics you'll use to measure your progress toward your objectives.
2. Consider the data you'll need. Use both quantitative and qualitative data to measure progress toward your organization's impact objectives. Plan out how you'll use both types of data to tell your organization's impact story. 
3. Collect data. Identify where your current data lives and collect additional data as needed. This may involve sending surveys to beneficiaries to collect impact stories or using the reporting and analytics features in a marketing platform to gather more conversion rate data.
4. Analyze the data. Look for trends, patterns, and changes in your data that can guide your organization to strengthen its current strategy or make adjustments to be more effective. This is much easier to do with a dedicated IMM platform. 
5. Act on your insights. Using the insights you've gathered from the IMM process, put your strategy changes into play. Once you've taken action, you'll continue the iterative IMM process to monitor impact continually and make further improvements. 

Want a closer look at the IMM process? 

Technology has a key role to play in a successful IMM practice. In particular, a dedicated IMM platform or trust-based philanthropy software like UpMetrics allows you to: 

• Easily create an Impact Framework using customizable templates. 
• Create mobile-friendly data requests, import data from existing sources, connect with your existing tools, and collect impact narratives to gather all impact data in one place.
• Analyze your impact data in dynamic dashboards and visualize progress over time to benchmark progress against regional data, industry standards, or past performance and gather useful insights.  
• Streamline transparent reporting and decision-making using a two-way portal that allows both impact funders and producers to better understand an organization's effectiveness and its needs.  

Ready to see UpMetrics in action? 

Examples of Trust-Based Philanthropy in Action 

It's easy to talk about adopting a trust-based philanthropy mindset in practice. But what does it look like for impact funders and producers to transition from transactional to collaborative relationships in real life? 

Let's dig into some examples of trust-based philanthropy by exploring the UpMetrics Cohort program!

At UpMetrics, we've created a Cohort program that allows funders and producers to leverage the technology and community they need to do more good in their thematic impact areas. 

Through the program, foundations or investors (or groups of these funders) create or join a Cohort by sponsoring five or more impact producer organizations. The UpMetrics team then provides:

• Access to UpMetrics' advanced IMM suite for both funders and producers 
• Professional setup services to assist participants in creating Impact Frameworks, collecting data, building dashboards, and more 
• UpAcademy sessions where participants learn IMM best practices 
• Quarterly Community Insight Sessions facilitated by the UpMetrics team, where funders and producers discuss impact and progress toward shared goals 

Since its creation, our Cohort program has been activated in more than 10 communities across the U.S., serving over 500,000 community members. 

As of 2025, we have three active Cohorts in Chicago, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Southeast Michigan.  

Let's take a closer look at our Bay Area Cohort! 

The Bay Area Cohort 

This cohort operates in UpMetrics' homebase, the San Francisco Bay Area, and all organizations involved are committed to serving children and families in the local community.

Cohort Funders: 

• Quest Foundation
• Walther Family Foundation
• O'Brien Family Foundation
• Morgan Family Foundation
• Payne Family Foundation 

Grantees: 

• The Arc San Francisco 
• FACES
• Holy Family Day Home
• R.O.C.K.
• Peer Health Exchange 

 The Bay Area Cohort participants are focused on the following IMM initiatives: 

• Strengthening relationships between producers and funders
• Collaborating and exchanging ideas with fellow changemakers
• Building long-term capacity around data collection and management
• Improving reporting across multiple stakeholder groups
• Defining and communicating stories of impact 

Get a sneak peek inside the Bay Area Cohort by watching the video below, where you'll hear from members of the UpMetrics team and a couple of the Cohort funders: 

Interested in joining or forming a Cohort of your own? 

Wrapping Up 

Top-down, imbalanced relationships between impact funders and impact producers have long been the norm in philanthropy. But there is a better way forward: trust-based philanthropy. Use this guide to begin adopting trust-based philanthropy principles at your organization, and remember that measuring and communicating impact is key to creating more equitable and productive long-term relationships.

Want to keep reading about the world of IMM? Check out these additional resources: 

• The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Nonprofit Storytelling
• Impact Investing: Everything You Need to Know to Succeed
• How to Measure Social Impact Like a Pro: A Full Guide