This is another example of a productive international collaboration. What started at a session at ERNOP’s Safe Spaces programme, in which Pamala Wiepking was paired with Ane Grubb from the Danish foundation VELUX FONDEN, led to a peer-reviewed publication with multiple international co-authors in the Policy & Practice section of Voluntary Sector Review.
The dominant model in grant-making is still short-term, project-based funding. This feeds the nonprofit starvation cycle: organisations understate real costs to stay competitive for grants, reinforcing funders’ misperceptions about what it takes to operate effectively.
Trust-based philanthropy (TBP) — multi-year, unrestricted funding with simpler processes and genuinely equitable funder-grantee relationships — is a growing response. We look at its promise and practical dilemmas, drawing on literature and examples from Denmark, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, the UK and the US, plus practice-based workshops with Danish grant-making staff and nonprofit leaders.
We map the dilemmas across three stages:
- Selecting partners — how do funders choose long-term partners without reinforcing existing advantage toward large, established organisations?
- Cultivating trust — grant-making staff carry the relational work of building trust with grantees while sustaining trust with their own boards (the double axis of trust), complicated further by staff and grantee turnover.
- Exiting relationships — how and when can a funder responsibly step back without destabilising a partner that has come to rely on the funding?
For each stage, we offer concrete approaches — eco-system scans and starter grants, participatory decision-making and capacity support, early exit dialogue and consolidator grants — and close with four guiding principles: Participatory, Adaptive, Relational and Supportive.
Bottom line: TBP holds real promise for rebalancing power between funders and grantees, but it is no one-size-fits-all fix — doing it well takes ongoing, context-sensitive judgment.