What Secular Philanthropy Can Learn from Faith-Inspired Funders

By Neill Coleman

The word ‘philanthropy’ means love of humankind, but too often in philanthropic practice it manifests as a love of systems. processes and rules.  Structure can, of course, help to ensure access and fairness in funding decisions, but it can also get in the way of the people – who should be at the heart of the work. A particular group of funders are charting the way towards a more human-centered approach, and religious faith is their motivation and guide to doing so.

In Bridgespan’s 2021 report Elevating the Role of Faith-Inspired Impact in the Social Sector, Jeri Eckhart Queenan, Peter Grunert, and Devin Murphy describe the vital role that that faith-inspired organizations play in maintaining the social safety net and how, at the same time, “while some individual philanthropists and community foundations have recognized faith-inspired organizations as platforms for impact, that perspective has not translated into funding from the largest institutional philanthropies—particularly those seeking to address the effects of poverty and injustice.”    

The Bridgespan report sought to “demystify faith-based organizations” for secular funders. Sitting in close relationship to both faith-inspired nonprofits and institutional philanthropy are faith-inspired funders: foundations and other philanthropic entities that are explicitly of faith.

This article seeks to “demystify” these faith-inspired funders, explore where they are different from – or aligned with –  secular philanthropy, and what all funders can learn from them.

Following the practice of the Bridgespan authors, I use the term “faith-inspired” because, while all the funders surveyed have a faith connection, not all of them are organizationally part of a religious entity, although most are.

THE WHY

Every philanthropic entity has (or should have) a “why” – a mission or purpose that drives their creation and work. The faith-inspired funders surveyed all expressed a strong connection to a set of faith-based values that drive their philanthropy – their “why.” One spoke of “philanthropy as a ministry” and “generosity” as a guiding principle. As funders, the ability to make grants allows for an additional manifestation of the mission of their church or congregation. The resources to do this is a tool that few congregations have and those that do acknowledge it as an unusual blessing or gift which requires careful stewardship and discernment on how to use the funds. For these faith-inspired funders having a clear values frame is a way to deeply connect their philanthropy to their other work and ministries.

For some, faith is explicit in their stated core values. The Deaconess Foundation in St Louis, MO is a ministry of the United Church of Christ that has invested more than $100 million to improve the health of the St. Louis community since 1998. Their values are faith, liberation, healing and justice. Under their value of faith, they state that “As followers of Christ, we are called to emulate Christ’s living example through generations.”

For others, the values may be expressed in more universal language but are still drawn from their faith tradition. GLIDE in San Francisco, is an operating foundation with programs addressing some of society’s most pressing issues, and emerged from GLIDE Memorial Church. The church and the foundation recently became separate entities, but the stated core values of the church still guide the foundation.  The GLIDE values are: Radically inclusive; truth-telling; loving and hopeful; for the people; celebration.

THE WHAT

Of course, the manifestation of organizational core values can vary dramatically: from scarcely-noticed words on a website to a living embodiment through the work of an organization.  For these faith-inspired funders it tends to steer in the latter direction: the “why” really does inform the “what”  and human needs – both material and spiritual – tend to be at the forefront.

Identification

One key way these values manifest is informing and identifying focus areas for grant funding.

The Mother Cabrini Health Foundation is the largest foundation focused exclusively on healthcare across New York state. Their core values are Catholic-rooted, and lead them to prioritize work that connects to the ministry of St Frances Xavier Cabrini and demonstrates a preferential option for the poor.  This manifests in grants to improve the health and wellbeing of vulnerable New Yorkers, bolster the health outcomes of diverse communities, eliminate barriers to care, and bridge gaps in health services. Mother Cabrini is the patron saint of immigrants. And she was an immigrant herself. The foundation has connected to this legacy with over $18 million in funding to groups supporting immigrants coming into New York.

Christ Church Cathedral is a reverent, yet progressive, faith community located on Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis. As their rector, Rev. Dr. Gray Lesesne, explains, “The priority areas [for grants] really came as a result of spiritual discernment. The question for us was ‘in what area is God calling us to use our gifts and skills and best respond to where our gifts and skills intersect with the world’s deepest needs?’” That has led to a focus on immigration, homelessness and anti-racism.

Rev. Bethany Johnson-Javois, president and CEO of the Deaconess Foundation, says that they seek to “be strategic, but be strategic with a deeper analysis that includes spiritual discernment. Well-being of the soul is of central importance to our strategic approach…a priority that secular philanthropy is designed to leave out of the humankind equation. This is our differentiator.” 

Impact

In addition to the identification of focus areas, these faith-inspired values also lead to a deeper concept of desired impact, beyond the more material solutions and metrics that many secular donors and foundations gravitate towards.

Hope for New York, founded in 1992 by the late Rev. Tim Keller, supports nonprofits that provide basic needs for immigrants, the homeless and formerly incarcerated. Their CEO Elise Chong says, “Part of our mission statement is that we want to see flourishing across our city and flourishing for us means not only do we try to support the social or the economic side of communities and individuals, but we will also want to support the spiritual flourishing of individuals and communities.”

The Wayfarer Foundation is a Baháʼí-inspired organization that funds and supports spiritually rooted and justice-oriented nonprofits. They are looking to address deeper underlying problems such as a crisis of meaning, belonging and connection, that they believe, must be attended to in order to create a new kind of world. Rich Havard, director of programs, notes that humans need spiritual solutions to our most pressing problems and quotes Michelle Alexander: “Without a moral or spiritual awakening, we will remain forever trapped in political games fueled by fear, greed and the hunger for power.” Havard says, “And I think part of what faith-connected funders can do is to bring that higher purpose and meaning to the work. Material progress is important, but it is not enough on its own.”

While anecdotal, the faith-inspired funders, perhaps not surprisingly, seem to place more value on the work of faith-inspired nonprofits. Trinity Church Wall Street Philanthropies and the Veatch Program at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock, Long Island, both make over a third of their grants to religious entities. Both of these philanthropic funders are anchored in specific congregations and are closely connected to their denominations and religious traditions. But this dynamic also extends to funders like the Fetzer Institute, a private foundation that is dedicated to helping build the spiritual foundation for a loving world and is not part of a church. Thirty to forty percent of their grants have an explicit faith component.

While the number of tech internships, or units of affordable housing created may well be part of what success looks like, these funders are defining their impact in ways that bring higher human purpose and meaning to the work.

THE HOW

Alongside informing what they fund, faith-based values also drive how these organizations engage as funders. They prioritize a relational and responsive approach to working with grantees, centering people and their humanity. Many of them also spoke about how they build spiritual practices for their own people – their staff – into their work as funders.

These faith-inspired funders prioritize a deeply relational approach to working with those they fund. Trinity Church Wall Street Philanthropies talk about “walking alongside” their grantees and invest in multiple capacity-building supports for grantees to make this real, including retreats, financial planning, and marketing and communications capacity.

Another way this commitment to a relational approach shows up is through longer-term funding than is usual in philanthropy. Hope for New York has been working with some grantees for thirty years or more. Trinity Church Wall Street Philanthropies, Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, the Veatch Program, and Christ Church Cathedral have recently made changes to their grant processes to make multi-year funding easier.

While many secular funders also practice long-term funding (and multi-year grants are increasingly seen as a philanthropic best-practice), a grounding in faith does seem to strengthen ongoing commitments and a relational model to the point where funding an organization for multiple decades is seen as a good thing. While some secular funders are still wary of creating ‘dependency,’ a track-record of long-term engagement with grantees was a clear point of pride in conversations with several of these faith-inspired funders.

The human-centered relational approach is also demonstrated in a commitment to community participation. This dynamic can work both through bringing the community into the grants process, and through taking the faithful out to volunteer with grantee organizations.

Episcopal Charities of New York provides funding, operational, and volunteer support to approximately 100 charitable organizations in New York City and the Hudson Valley. They have created an advisory committee to ensure community voice in grant recommendations. Advisory committee members must live in the communities where they are weighing in on grant decisions.

The Mother Cabrini Health Foundation has created a community engagement team specifically to ensure that the foundation is reaching local charities, community-based organizations and community leaders who may not be aware of the foundation or may need help navigating the grant application process.

For other faith-inspired funders, volunteering can be a way to strengthen relations with grantees and communities. It may also serve as a means for their people – congregation members – to live out their faith and to make a personal commitment that complements the institutional commitment being made through grants.

At Christ Church Cathedral, Indianapolis there’s a quarterly engagement opportunity with each of their grantees. For example, the church may provide volunteers to do check-in at a fundraising event, or serve meals. They believe this has fostered more meaningful relationships between the congregation and grantees. Furthermore, congregational giving for the grantees has tripled since they made the more direct connection.

For Hope in New York volunteering was the original purpose of the organization, with funding and capacity-building added as the scope of the work grew.

For both Hope in New York and Christ Church Cathedral, the volunteering is not an “add on” and the leaders of both organizations are very aware of the dynamic of managing volunteers becoming an obligation for the grantee. “We’ve been really frank with the agencies and just said, ‘call us when you need us, don’t create busy work for us,’” said the rector of Christ Church. To ensure a mutually respectful relationship, Christ Church creates letters of agreement with each of the grantees setting out mutual expectations. This approach seeks to advance forms of engagement with grantees that are aligned with the funder’s core values: being in a relationship with grantees that is responsive to their needs, not burdensome.

Today, the Texas Methodist foundation is working with many of their congregations around spiritual formation as well as engagement with their neighborhood. The foundation’s CEO, Lisa Greenwood, observes that traditionally formation (or discipleship) often meant serving on a church committee. She notes, “This may have worked fifty years ago, but it no longer works or motivates. Congregations must move beyond the answer set of committees to deeper engagement that leads to flourishing.

Part of finding new answers may be the combination of personal engagement and institutional engagement – strengthening the human component in philanthropic work. Congregation members are likely seeking personal spiritual growth, and to witness their faith in tangible ways. There may be an opportunity to do so through volunteering with organizations that are also funded by their faith community. Several of the funders noted that in order to do this, they put significant effort into sharing stories of the work and impact of the grantees to inform and inspire congregation members to engage. Often this is integrated into worship services.  Rodney Mackenzie, Vice President, Ally Development at Fetzer Institute, poses the question: “What if the grant making is another sacred text?”

Another part of the relational focus is a commitment to being responsive.

Trinity Church Wall Street Philanthropies describe a genesis for their work being a “responding to need we see before us.” This led them towards funding to end homelessness and address racial injustice and mental health. And in engaging with grantee partners, they seek to be good listeners. They have data to suggest it is working. The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) is a nonprofit that gathers anonymous grantee feedback via their Grantee Perception Report. Their 2022 report on Trinity put the funder in the top 10 percent of funders in CEP’s comparative dataset for the extent to which Trinity’s grantmaking priorities “reflect a deep understanding of the needs of the people and communities that grantees serve.” Trinity also scored well on responsiveness, candor, and openness to ideas from grantees about their strategies.

Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, in crafting the Cabrini Way (a definition of their approach to philanthropy) identifies responsiveness to community needs as a core attribute.

Of course, being in true relationship and being responsive is dependent on how the humans who work at these faith-based funders show up. Several funders work to operationalize spiritual practice into their work believing that this is foundational for these relationships.

At the Fetzer Institute there is a dedicated four hours a week when the whole community comes together for a spiritual practice and to deepen understanding of ways to be in relationship with others and the natural world.  The team at Wayfarer Foundation also meets every week as a full team to engage in collective spiritual practice.

FAITH FUNDERS AND SECULAR FUNDERS

While these faith-inspired funders possess common characteristics that seem to be drawn from their faith, they are also all in relationship with secular funders. Several are members of regional or topic-focused groups of grant-makers such as Philanthropy New York. As such they are engaging with trends in philanthropy and have the opportunity to inform best-practices.

Several of the surveyed funders are embracing moves in philanthropy towards delegation in grant decisions and more trust-based approaches. These moves are in alignment with the human-centered focus practiced by faith-inspired funders. In several cases this delegation reflects a change in practice over the last few years in line with broader shifts in philanthropy away from more paternalistic styles of funding, a prioritization of racial equity, and a desire to make best use of peoples’ skills and time. These funders saw that a multi-step approval structure was getting in the way of moving funds to those most able to deploy them.  They also wanted to shift from dynamics that prioritize risk and control towards trust and agency.

These faith-inspired funders are moving towards a more trust-based approach while trying to avoid getting tied up in processes. They  connect this back to their values. One funder drew a parallel between process-heavy philanthropy and the multiple hoops society requires people in poverty to jump through to access support and services – a posture which prioritizes process over people is very different to how these funders seek to engage.

As these faith-based funders participate more actively with the broader philanthropic community, there are opportunities for secular funders to learn from their faith-based peers. One revealing data point from the Bridgespan report, Elevating the Role of Faith-Inspired Impact in the Social Sector, is that faith-inspired nonprofits represent only 12 percent of safety net funding for the 15 largest private foundations in the United States, despite the fact that these organizations provide 40 percent of human services spending in the report’s six-city sample.¹

The funders interviewed had varying perspectives on how faith-inspired work is perceived by secular actors.

The Deaconess Foundation is very clear about their faith motivation and finds that “faith demanding justice is assumed and very well-respected.” Fetzer sees their philanthropic work as explicitly engaging with other funders and donors, taking them on a journey around faith and spirit, and encouraging them to talk about their spiritual traditions.

Of course, it may be that the reactions to faith-inspired nonprofits and faith-inspired funders are different, given the realities of power and financial resources.

Channon Lucas, the Chief Administrative Officer at Mother Cabrini Health Foundation observed a dynamic for those active in both faith and secular philanthropy spaces: code switching, or shifting language and phrasing between the faith context and the secular philanthropy context. She notes that often there’s a very similar goal, but the way people talk about it in each of those spaces is quite different. For example, the language of social justice and the Catholic belief in a “preferential option for the poor” may reflect similar goals but expressed in different ways.

This ability to code-switch, as well as translate, may be a superpower that faith-inspired funders possess, and should use. And a key lesson they could share with their secular brethren is the value of the human connection. From being expansive in considering what impact looks like, including people’s desire for connection and meaning; to taking a relational and responsive approach through walking alongside grantees in healthy, respectful and long-term relationships; to connecting the institutional and the personal in finding spaces for people to manifest their desire for engagement and fulfillment. In doing so, they could play an important role in putting humanity back in philanthropy.

¹https://www.bridgespan.org/getmedia/0952bd65-31a2-4d9a-97b0-5926ef1f48e6/elevating-the-role-of-faith-inspired-impact-in-the-social-sector-jan-2021.pdf

Neill Coleman is a leader in deploying philanthropy, partnerships, and persuasion to drive social change.  As the Founder and Principal of Mission Magnified Consulting he has a track-record of creating strategies, building organizations, and inspiring people towards meaningful impact. Neill served for five years as the Executive Director of Trinity Church Wall Street Philanthropies. Neill developed a strategic direction for an expansion of Trinity’s grant-making from $10 million to $57 million a year, focused on housing & homelessness and racial justice in New York City; and building leadership and financial capacity in the Anglican church globally. From 2012 to 2017 Neill was Vice President for Global Communications at The Rockefeller Foundation. During the first term of the Obama Administration Neill served as Chief External Affairs Officer at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, He is a board member of Philanthropy New York.  Neill is  a native of Glasgow, Scotland, the son of a Presbyterian minister,  and has a M.A. in Modern History from the University of Oxford.

Faith Funders Interviewed

Christ Church Cathedral Indianapolis, Indiana
Deaconess Foundation, St. Louis, Missouri
Episcopal Charities of New York, New York City, New York
The Fetzer Institute, Kalamazoo, Michigan,
GLIDE Foundation/ GLIDE Memorial Church, San Francisco, California
Hope for New York, New York City, New York
Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, New York City, New York
Texas Methodist Foundation, Austin, Texas
Trinity Church Wall Street Philanthropies, New York City
Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, New York
Wayfarer Foundation,  Highland Park, Illinois