How Real Impact Requires Three Steps, Not One: Philanthropy and Corporate Giving in Transition - My perspective

(I know this is a long article for LinkedIn standards, but I found it impossible to express these ideas without going into detail. If you are interested not only in understanding the current trends in philanthropy but also in reflecting on what, in my view and experience, the next steps should be, then I believe this piece deserves to be read in full.)

In recent years, while working with NGOs, universities, foundations, and corporate donors, I have often sensed that something deeper is changing in the way philanthropy operates. It is not just about the types of projects funded or the administrative models we use. What seems to be shifting is the very mindset behind giving; a redefinition of trust, partnership, and long-term responsibility.

As I read and discuss with colleagues across Europe, I increasingly see two intertwined evolutions. The first concerns how foundations and corporate donors select and work with their grantees. The second concerns the kind of support they choose to offer. Both are reshaping the landscape in ways that are already visible to anyone who works daily on fundraising, partnership building, or project management in this field.

To confirm and better understand these changes, I have also looked at what some of the main observers and networks in the sector have recently published. In particular, I refer here to analyses and insights from organisations such as Philea - Philanthropy Europe Association Impact Europe , the European Fundraising Association (EFA) , and the C & E Advisory ’s Corporate Non-Profit Partnerships Barometer, among others. These publications, based on data and expert perspectives, mirror many of the tendencies I have observed in my daily work. I believe that, if we want to analyse this sector seriously, we must also consider these sources; they take the pulse of how philanthropy and corporate giving are evolving across Europe.

The first step: two new approaches

New approach 1: From open calls to long-term partnerships

A decade ago, most foundations and donors relied on open calls. They symbolised accessibility and fairness. Every organisation could apply, and competition was seen as the main driver of innovation. Today, however, it is clear that this model has its limits. I have seen it myself, again and again: an enormous administrative effort on both sides, low success rates, and hundreds of small initiatives struggling to survive beyond their first grant.

Reading the recent analyses from Impact Europe, especially "If We Want Impact to Endure, It Must Be Financed" and "Beyond Grants: Investing Your Programmes", I found confirmation of what many of us observe in practice. Lasting social impact rarely comes from isolated projects; it grows through coherent ecosystems of actors who work together over time. That is why many foundations are quietly moving away from open competitive calls and investing instead in curated, invitation-based partnerships.

Lasting social impact rarely comes from isolated projects; it grows through coherent ecosystems of actors who work together over time.

I have seen this shift especially among those funders who now prefer to co-design initiatives with their grantees, sometimes even acting as co-implementers. The approach is more demanding in the beginning but far more sustainable in the long run. When the relationship is based on trust and strategic alignment, it generates less fragmentation and much deeper learning.

This tendency is also described in Philea’s work, including examples like the Mozaik Foundation or the Leap Collective. These organisations have replaced open calls with long-term collaborations built around shared missions. They no longer see themselves as donors but as partners who accompany grantees through the different stages of their development.

Even in the corporate world, the same logic is emerging. The 2025 C&E Corporate Non-Profit Partnerships Barometer shows how companies increasingly value strategic, multi-year collaborations instead of transactional sponsorships. The report describes a move toward "relationship-led partnerships" that align with corporate purpose and ESG objectives.

I often hear from NGOs and universities that access to corporate or foundation funding now depends more on relationships and alignment than on formal calls. This can create barriers for newcomers, but it also brings stability and predictability for those who have proven reliability and shared values.

Open calls are not disappearing altogether (they still serve a purpose, especially for scouting innovation) but they are no longer the dominant way to build collaboration. What seems to matter more today is the quality of the relationship and the continuity of engagement.

If we want results to last, we must finance the structures that make them possible.

New Approach 2: From project grants to operating support

The second transformation concerns the nature of funding itself. For a long time, philanthropic and corporate donors preferred project-based grants. These provided clarity, measurable outputs, and visible results. Yet from the perspective of those who manage projects on a daily basis, I have seen how this model can become a trap. Once the funding ends, so does the capacity to maintain the team, the partnerships, and often the most promising outcomes.

A growing number of funders are realising that genuine social impact requires resilient organisations, not only successful projects. The idea is simple: if we want results to last, we must finance the structures that make them possible.

Impact Europe’s paper "Investing Your Foundation Endowment for Impact: How and Why" highlights this point by showing how foundations can use endowments and mission-related investments to support the long-term capacity of their partners. "Beyond Grants: Investing Your Programmes" makes a similar argument, calling for funding that sustains governance, staff development, and innovation; in other words, operating support.

Philea’s resources provide concrete examples. The Mozaik Foundation deliberately shifted from short-term projects to flexible, mission-oriented funding that covers operational costs. The Mercator Foundation Switzerland embedded strategic foresight into its organisational culture, an investment that would be impossible without multi-year, unrestricted support. The Leap Collective goes even further, describing core funding as a principle of systemic change.

I recognise the same pattern among corporate donors. The C&E Barometer notes that many companies are moving beyond one-off sponsorships toward "capacity-building collaborations". These include funding for organisational delivery, staff retention, and continuous learning: precisely the areas that were often excluded from traditional project budgets.

From the perspective of non-profits, this evolution is not just welcome but vital. The EFA Nonprofit Pulse 2024 report confirms that the lack of unrestricted funding remains a major concern across Europe. Yet it also notes that flexible, multi-year support is gradually increasing, especially from foundations experimenting with trust-based philanthropy.

This is not a cosmetic change. It implies a new understanding of accountability. Instead of measuring every euro against individual project activities, funders are beginning to look at organisational learning, adaptability, and mission coherence. For those of us who work on project management and evaluation, this is a significant and long-awaited shift.

My point – The two next steps

Here I will pause for a moment. The previous sections have focused on what I have tried to keep as a concise analysis of the current data and observable trends. From this point onward, I would like to share my personal perspective; not as an external observer, but as someone who has worked for many years on both sides of this landscape. I have been involved in the work of foundations and grant-making bodies, but also in that of NGOs, universities, and associations seeking funds. This dual experience has shaped the way I see the ongoing transition and what I believe still needs to happen for it to be truly transformative.

This shared direction, from open calls to partnerships and from project-based to operating support, will only become meaningful if it is accompanied by a profound change in mindset. What needs to evolve is not only the procedures of foundations, philanthropies, and corporate donors, but also the skills and attitudes of those who do grant-making within these organisations.

Funders must stop seeing themselves as financiers and start acting as capacity builders.

In my view, this is the critical point. Too often, funders still approach their role with the logic of controllers, assessors, and gatekeepers. They focus on selecting the right organisations, transferring resources, and monitoring outcomes. But if we truly believe in the shift toward long-term partnerships and operating support, this logic is no longer sufficient.

Foundations and corporate donors must stop seeing themselves primarily as financiers and start acting as capacity builders. Their task should not end when the grant agreement is signed. It should continue through the entire cycle: from the preparation of applications and the collection of documentation for operating grants, to the implementation phase, the measurement of impact, and the reporting process.

At every stage, the relationship should include not only monitoring and evaluation, but genuine accompaniment: technical guidance, peer exchange, and shared reflection, comprehensive support. When funders take on this role, the partnership becomes reciprocal. The foundation or corporate donor does not simply assess impact but helps to build the capacity to generate it. This is what, in my experience, makes the difference between a good partnership and a transformative one.

If we want philanthropy and corporate giving to evolve from transactional funding into real engines of social change, we must move beyond grant-making toward capacity building as a core function. Only then will the transition from open calls to partnerships, and from projects to operating support, fully achieve its purpose.

The second step: Expanding on capacity building

When I talk about capacity building, I am not referring to administrative or financial support. I mean something far more structural: the transfer of knowledge, tools, and methods that allow organisations to stand on their own feet and design coherent, effective, and measurable initiatives.

Too often, foundations or corporate donors act like administrators. They select the grantees, provide the funds, monitor compliance, and assess results at the end. This is the traditional grant-making mindset. It ensures control, but it rarely generates transformation.

A true capacity builder, on the other hand, brings skills to the table. When an organisation is selected for an operating grant, the relationship should include guidance and learning opportunities. Many smaller NGOs, for instance, struggle to distinguish their objectives from their activities, or to structure their plans around a clear logic. They may have passion and commitment, but not always the methodological tools to translate these into sustainable impact.

In this sense, grant makers who act as capacity builders should be able to train and accompany their grantees. They should help them design applications that follow a clear reasoning, grounded in a "theory of change" or a logical framework. These are not bureaucratic templates; they are fundamental thinking tools. They help organisations connect their actions to the change they want to create, and to verify whether that change is truly happening.

The same applies to impact measurement. Measuring impact is not about counting how many activities were implemented. It is about assessing the change generated in the community, in people’s lives, or in the systems the project seeks to influence. This requires knowledge, of what to measure, where, and with which indicators.

I have met many organisations that, despite their dedication, simply lack the instruments to do this. They confuse output indicators with outcome indicators, or product indicators with process indicators. They often report what they did, but not what changed because of it. Expecting them to master impact evaluation on their own is unrealistic.

Expecting grantees to master impact evaluation on their own is unrealistic.

That is why grant makers should integrate capacity building into their funding processes. They should provide support and training on how to define objectives, how to use logical frameworks, how to identify meaningful indicators, and how to distinguish between direct and indirect results.

Building this competence within the partnership transforms the funding relationship. It turns it from a vertical exchange into a collaborative process of growth. The funder no longer stands at the top evaluating performance, but walks alongside the grantee, helping to build the very capacity that ensures impact will last.

The Third Step: Transforming the Grant Makers Themselves

If the first step toward a more impactful philanthropy has already been taken, with the move from open calls to partnerships and from project-based to operating support, and if the second step is the shift from a funder’s mentality to that of a capacity builder, then there is still a third step waiting to be addressed.

This third step concerns who the grant makers are, and what kind of skills they bring into the process. Because to become true capacity builders, foundations, philanthropies, and corporate donors cannot rely on the same profiles and competences they have relied on until now.

What I see, even among very progressive institutions, is the belief that these new approaches can be implemented by the same people, with the same training and professional backgrounds, who used to manage traditional grant-making cycles. But that is not possible. Supporting partners through capacity building requires a different mindset and, above all, different expertise.

Too many grant-making teams are still dominated by administrative and financial profiles; what philanthropy now needs are change managers and strategic planners.

Too many grant-making teams are still dominated by administrative and financial profiles: competent professionals, of course, but trained to control and monitor rather than to guide and empower. If we want foundations and corporate donors to become genuine partners in change, they need fewer administrators and financial managers, and more change managers and strategic planners.

These are the people who can help grantees not only to comply with rules, but to develop a clear vision, a logical structure, and the technical capacity to measure what they achieve. A grant officer who aspires to act as a capacity builder must understand what a theory of change is, how to construct a logical framework, and how to define and interpret indicators of impact. They need practical experience, ideally in the field, working with NGOs or community organisations, and the ability to translate that experience into guidance.

In other words, foundations and corporate donors must evolve internally. They need to upskill their staff, turning administrative officers into professionals who can offer technical assistance, coaching, and strategic support.

This transformation is not easy, and I understand why it meets resistance. Many foundations, especially those linked to banking systems, have inherited a culture where financial monitoring dominates everything else. In that environment, risk control and procedural accuracy naturally take precedence over strategy and learning. But in philanthropy, the balance must be different. Financial accountability remains essential, but it cannot be the whole story.

If we truly want to see philanthropy and corporate giving act as long-term drivers of social change, the people working inside these organisations must also change. They must acquire new competences, new roles, and a new sense of purpose. Only then will the three steps align: partnerships instead of calls, operating support instead of projects, and capacity builders instead of administrators.

That, to me, is the direction in which philanthropy must go if it wants not just to fund impact, but to build it.

Bringing the three steps together

The second and third steps are deeply connected. Capacity building for grantees cannot exist without capacity building inside the grant makers themselves. One feeds the other. To make this connection real, several activities can help: training programmes for grant officers and programme managers; direct training for grantees or potential grantees; and peer groups or learning fora among organisations funded by the same foundation, especially those working in similar areas.

These kinds of spaces can foster what I would call horizontal capacity building: a system in which knowledge, tools, and reflections circulate between funders and grantees, and among grantees themselves. They also allow for genuine co-production, where foundations and grantees design and learn together, rather than merely exchanging reports.

I will explore these operational aspects more in future reflections, but one point is already clear. The three steps I have described are not optional; they are sequential and interdependent. Moving to closed calls and operating grants without implementing the other two (without becoming capacity builders and without transforming the internal competences of grant makers) risks doing more harm than good.

It may reduce the number of applications and limit access to funding, creating a more impermeable system, without necessarily improving the quality or depth of impact. In my experience, I see the first step clearly underway, the second beginning to take shape, and the third still waiting to happen.

Until these three steps are aligned, philanthropy and corporate giving will keep evolving in form, but not yet fulfilling their full potential. It is time to move from promising intentions to meaningful transformation. And this requires courage: the courage to rethink not only the relationship with grantees, but also to look inward: to reconsider, within foundations, philanthropies, and corporate donors themselves, their competences, their teams, their working styles, their objectives, and ultimately their role alongside the organisations they choose to support. The potential is already there;  now it is time to turn this evolution into real, lasting change.

The potential is already there; now is the moment to turn this evolution into real and lasting change.

Roberto Zanon, director of SOLVERE

www.solvere.works