For more than a decade, Fund for Shared Insight – a national funder collaborative – has been working to improve philanthropy by inspiring and supporting nonprofits and funders to listen and respond to those most affected by their decisions. Our long-term goal is that communities and people most impacted, but typically least consulted, by philanthropy and nonprofits are better off in ways they define for themselves.
While our work at Shared Insight has consistently focused on promoting the value and importance of listening, we have evolved over time. Our early efforts were trained primarily on feedback – one type of listening, but not the only one that is needed. Our successful signature initiative Listen4Good, a funder-supported feedback capacity-building program for nonprofits, which we spun off as an independent effort in 2023, recently enrolled its 1,000th participating organization and has helped nonprofits and funders listen to more than 230,000 individuals to date.
Through Listen4Good, we asked funders to listen by supporting nonprofits’ feedback work and by learning alongside their grantees from the input collected. Now, we are also encouraging funders to implement other listening practices that put them in more direct partnership with the people and communities they seek to serve.
Our frame for this work, captured in the phrase “funder listening to shift power,” represents an evolution in our thinking about the type of listening — especially to people and communities that have been historically marginalized by structural racism and other systemic inequities — that is needed to improve philanthropy and build a more just and equitable society.
As we promote and support efforts to make this kind of listening to community an expected standard in philanthropy, we recognize that what we mean by funder listening to shift power may not be self-evident unless we are clear on what we mean by listening and how we are thinking about power.
Defining power
The need to shift and share power has become a frequent topic of discussion in philanthropy circles, particularly since 2020. But simply repeating the phrase “shift or share power” doesn’t provide clarity about what practices need to change, how power should be shared, or what we mean by power in the first place. Power can have many meanings.
A typical Western definition of power is “having the discretion and the means to asymmetrically enforce one’s will over entities.”1 In an institutional context, philanthropy has both the discretion (foundations can define their missions, establish priorities, and control the conditions under which funds are granted) and the means (financial resources) to exercise power. The asymmetrical nature of philanthropy’s relationship with grantees and communities has been widely discussed and criticized.
But this relatively narrow conception of power — equating power with money, control of processes, and control over others — may be one of the biggest barriers that prevents funders from shifting power. Our recent learnings and experiences, especially around our participatory grantmaking initiative, expanded our thinking and helped us understand that there are many other ways to define and conceive of power.
In his autobiography Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “Power, properly understood, is the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political, or economic changes.”2 King thus defines power as the ability to achieve purpose and effect change. Power is not control or possession of resources, nor control over people. In the context of philanthropy, King’s words remind us that foundations by themselves, however high-minded or well-intentioned, do not inherently hold or wield this type of power. We as funders can only achieve our purposes, especially purposes oriented toward justice and liberation, by working in partnership with others.
If we think of power not as a finite resource to be conserved and doled out, but as the ability to achieve intended purposes, then what does it mean to shift power? In their 2023 publication Limitless Possibilities: A Guide to Power Shifting in Philanthropy, the MPHI Center for Culturally Responsive Engagement writes:
“Shifting power calls for a shift in mindset away from viewing power as vested only in institutions that provide resources, to the mindset that funders can create the conditions to exercise power with grant partners and communities. This “power with” notion exercises the power of funders, grant partners, and communities and emphasizes equitable partnerships. Funders, grant partners, and communities use their power together, in a more generative way, oriented toward mutuality and love for humanity and centered on building responsive relationships with groups and across partners (Just Associates, 2006; ORS Impact, 2022; Suarez, 2018).”
We believe this mindset shift can start with and be fostered by listening, and that listening in combination with other intentional practices can lead to greater community power and self-determination. It is important to note that the power-shifting we are talking about is not a simple reversal of who holds power over whom. Instead, it embraces the concept of power with, where philanthropy engages in reciprocal relationships with the communities it exists to benefit. This requires funders to de-center themselves as the primary source of solutions and to acknowledge the knowledge and power that also reside in people and communities. As a result, funders engage in partnership with and provide resources to support people and communities to achieve their self-defined interests and aspirations.
Funder listening to shift power
Over the years, we’ve faced a lot of skeptical questions about the value of promoting funder listening, including, “Aren’t most funders already listening?” and, “Is funder listening really enough of a change to improve philanthropy in a meaningful way?” Our response to these questions has been, and continues to be: It depends on how listening is defined, how funders approach it, and how they put it into action along with other aligned practices.
One challenge in defining “funder listening to shift power” is that most people think they already know what listening means. Most funders and nonprofits say they listen to community in the same way that most people think they’re good listeners. But listening to shift power involves more than simply hearing, receiving and processing information, or giving others an opportunity to share their thoughts.
From the beginning of Shared Insight’s feedback work, we have used the phrase “high-quality feedback loops” to distinguish between fully developed feedback systems and other listening efforts that are less sustainable and less able to drive real change. Listen4Good centers its work around the five steps of a high-quality feedback loop. The same practices and principles of that feedback-loop system apply to other forms of funder listening and are at the core of what we mean by funder listening to shift power.
Our thinking also draws on our experience with participatory practices in philanthropy, deeper work around understanding how power operates, and an examination of other, complementary efforts in philanthropy around strengthening ties to community. We believe that funder listening to shift power:
Is not a one-time activity or exercise, but an ongoing process reflecting a commitment to the five steps of a high-quality feedback loop, which includes closing the loop – circling back to those who shared their perspectives to let them know what you heard and how you are planning to respond.
Is grounded in relationships and partnership. Research from our learning partner, ORS Impact, suggests that listening processes that are most effective at advancing equity and shifting power involve being in relationship and partnership throughout the process – from framing the initial conversations to making meaning from what is heard to figuring out how to respond. These relationships are built on open channels of communication, mutual accountability, and authentic partnership, such as through shared decision making.
Engages an explicit power analysis. Funders have historically exercised outsized power, and that dynamic, if not taken into account and addressed, can result in funder listening that is extractive, transactional, or just reinforcing what funders want to hear. Funders should approach listening with a clear understanding of how power currently operates and with specific attention to people and communities most impacted, but not typically consulted, by philanthropy and nonprofits.
Advances equity. This kind of listening offers an opportunity for funders to hear from — and work shoulder-to-shoulder with — diverse communities and people who are experts in their own lives and have myriad assets and capabilities. It engages multiple forms of listening, such as systematic feedback loops, participatory processes, and community-driven practices, to make lasting systemic change.
For too long, philanthropy has operated in a top-down, hierarchical mode, isolated from the people and communities impacted by our decisions. We have privileged the voices and perspectives of the wealthy and powerful while further excluding or marginalizing communities from which wealth has been extracted or denied. Philanthropy’s institutions and ways of doing business are products of the same inequitable systems that our grantmaking is often intended to address.
By listening to shift power, philanthropy faces this reality head on. Rather than exercising power over the people and communities most affected by our decisions, funders can become true partners with communities to achieve positive change and the more just and equitable world we all seek.
We expect our learning will continue. We look forward to sharing how our work evolves and the tools, examples, stories, and other resources we have in store to help make funder listening to shift power standard practice throughout philanthropy. If you’re a funder or you have experience with funder listening to shift power, we’d also like to hear your story: Just a few minutes of your time can Lift Up Listening!
About the author:

Melinda Tuan
Footnotes:
1 See “Interpersonal Power: A Review, Critique, and Research Agenda,” by Rachel E. Sturm and John Antonakis. Journal of Management, Volume 41, Issue 1, January 2015.
2 Carson, Clayborne (editor). The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: IPM in Association with Warner Books, 1998.