In the spring and into the early summer of 2025, leaders from the 10 philanthropic infrastructure organizations that constitute CHANGE Philanthropy began discussing how funders could best support a sector in crisis.
Nonprofits were reeling from federal funding cuts and grappling with an increased demand for services due to those cuts. There were also pervasive fears that funders, cognizant of the Trump administration’s adversarial posture toward progressive philanthropy, would quietly dial back support for groups committed to racial equity and social justice.
In October, CHANGE Philanthropy announced the byproduct of its brainstorming sessions at its Unity Summit: Level Up, a three-pronged campaign where funders pledge to (1) either increase grantmaking by 20% or more, or deliver an endowment payout rate of 8% or higher for at least two fiscal years; (2) ensure that the dollars are moved quickly, flexibly and more equitably; and (3) share their Form 990s or relevant grant data to verify their commitments have been met.
As of mid-April, over 40 grantmakers, including the MacArthur, Henry Luce and McKnight foundations, have collectively pledged to move more than $500 million over two consecutive fiscal years. Meanwhile, the Level Up campaign team is engaging with dozens of additional foundations that are working with their stakeholders, including board members, to discuss the goals of the pledge and signing on to the commitments.
At a time when many nonprofits are still in danger of shutting down due to precipitous drops in public and private support, the pledge raises familiar questions about how funders should balance short-term responses with the preservation of long-term grantmaking capacity — and whether funders who think they’re doing “enough” should in fact be doing a lot more to challenge the grantmaking status quo. Note also that signatories commit to adopting the flexible, responsive and transparent grantmaking practices that sector advocates have been calling for since the pandemic.
I caught up with CHANGE Philanthropy Program and Campaigns Director Jodeen Olguín-Tayler as the Level Up team was immersed in what she called phase 2 of its work, which includes pitching the pledge at conferences, compiling case studies documenting signatories’ efforts to meet the pledge’s goals and brokering conversations between foundation reps who signed on and those who are considering doing so.
“We view the pledge as a tool to have these important conversations,” she said. “The end goal is the change that occurs not by signing the pledge and putting your name on the website, but doing the work and peer-to-peer engagement that’s going to make these changes stick for the longer term.”
How foundations go about signing the Level Up pledge
CHANGE Philanthropy, which was previously known as Joint Affinity Groups, or JAG, consists of 10 organizations — Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, A Philanthropic Partnership for Black Communities, Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy, Funders for LGBTQ Issues, Hispanics in Philanthropy, Native Americans in Philanthropy, National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, Neighborhood Funders Group, Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity and Women’s Funding Network. Its funders have included the Ford, Hewlett and Surdna foundations as well as the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
One of CHANGE Philanthropy’s core priorities is galvanizing more support for historically underfunded power-building groups, an aim that the pledge reflects. To this point, Olguín-Tayler told me one of the pledge’s goals is that, by the end of 2027, signatories will move an additional $250 million to “power-building strategies in underresourced communities.”
Members of the Level Up team engage every potential pledge signatory differently. They may talk to a CEO at one foundation, and a “trustee who wants to have a more active role in philanthropic advocacy,” as Olguín-Tayler put it, at another.
Ultimately, the foundation’s board must approve signing the pledge, which can be done on CHANGE Philanthropy’s website. After the pledge is signed, staff from CHANGE Philanthropy and its partner organization, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, review the information and vet the signatory before publishing the foundation’s name on its site.
The pledge “asks funders to match this moment’s urgency with meaningful resource shifts toward communities under attack,” said Connie Chung Joe, president and CEO of signatory AAPIP, in a statement to IP. “AAPIP stands with our partners in this campaign because cross-racial solidarity requires funders to act boldly when democracy and equity are at stake.” In a statement, the Stupski Foundation, which is accelerating its spend-down in response to the cascading effects of federal funding cuts, stated, “We applaud CHANGE Philanthropy for putting humanity over perpetuity and rejecting the all-too-common urge in philanthropy to preserve wealth over the wellbeing of the people we are meant to serve.”
How the Level Up team engages foundation leaders
The pledge’s first pillar calls for signatories to increase their grantmaking in a fairly dramatic way (an additional 20% or a rate of 8% or higher for two fiscal years), especially given most major foundations’ unwillingness to get anywhere close to that. Indeed, a Center for Effective Philanthropy report found that 70% of surveyed foundation CEOs said their institution hasn’t increased payout, in large measure because their boards fear that doing so would restrict long-term grantmaking capacity.
But we also know that change (pun intended) happens slowly in the foundation world. Some trustees’ opposition to boosting payout could soften over time, especially if — and it pains me to say this — conditions on the ground deteriorate even further. Cognizant that trustees’ calculus can be fluid, the Level Up team is seeking to address concerns that often prevent foundation stakeholders from increasing their grantmaking.
One way to do that: Putting leaders at foundations that already signed the pledge in touch with those who are weighing the decision. The conversations can, for instance, ameliorate concerns that boosting payout could disrupt the foundation’s short-term grantmaking operations. “We have cohorts and programs where directors are in conversation with each other,” said Olguín-Tayler, who is also the president of the board of the Movement Voter Project and a trustee of the Chicana Empowerment and Climate Equity Trust.
The Level Up team also engages potential signatories by “highlighting stories of exemplary work where funding can be absorbed quickly,” Olguín-Tayler said. This strategy zeroes in on funders’ concerns that organizations may lack the “absorptive capacity” to effectively handle a large gift.
Then there’s the fact that foundations that sign the Level Up pledge commit to boost payout over just two fiscal years, not forever. Leaders concerned about imperiling the foundation’s perpetual status can sign the pledge and dial back payout afterward. The move may disappoint opponents of perpetuity, but I’d consider it a win for the foundation’s grantees, some of which are grappling with existential challenges.
Over the last six months, the Level Up team has presented the pledge at a diverse array of outlets, including events hosted by CHANGE Philanthropy partners Native Americans in Philanthropy and A Philanthropic Partnership for Black Communities. In the coming months, the team will present at events hosted by another CHANGE Philanthropy organization, Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy, the Rocky Mountain Philanthropy Institute and many others.
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Reasons why foundations sign — or don’t sign — the pledge
As one would expect, some foundation leaders who worked with the Level Up team declined to sign the pledge. Olguín-Tayler mentioned a representative from “one of the 20 largest grantmakers in the U.S.” who told her that “they are moving in this direction [of higher payouts and more grantmaking flexibility], and doing so thoughtfully, rather than rushing to sign the pledge.”
I also suspect that other funders are navigating what a recent Democracy Notes report called a “chilling effect” as grantmakers pull back work tied to marginalized communities or race because it may raise the ire of the Trump administration. Leaders at foundations otherwise interested in racial justice and power-building may be hesitant to sign a public pledge underscoring a commitment to increase funding to these types of groups.
Then again, the atmosphere of unease can have the opposite effect on decision-makers’ calculus, as we saw last year when dozens of philanthropies, sector organizations and nonprofits came together around sign-on statements and broader collaborative campaigns to protect the sector’s interests against federal meddling. As is true of collaborative funding more generally, safety and confidence in numbers is a factor here. “We have heard from executives and boards who have said that they don’t often take a public position,” Olguín-Tayler said, “but they’ve chosen to sign the pledge precisely because they think it’s important that others feel empowered to join them.
At the very least, Olguín-Tayler hopes the conversations can compel funders to boost unrestricted support, simplify the grant application and reporting processes, and earmark more funding for power-building strategies in under-resourced communities.
While reviewing the pledge, I noticed it includes a box where signatories can check off “I/we already plan to sustain this pledge beyond two years,” reflecting the Level Up team’s hope that foundations will adhere to the pledge’s principles, even if the sector miraculously returns to a place of relative stability. While it’s probably self-evident at this point, it’s worth reiterating that a foundation leader who checks that box does so knowing that maintaining high payout levels could make it more difficult to maintain the institution’s perpetual status.
It’s a risk some leaders are willing to take. These individuals recognize that “10, 20 years’ worth of grantmaking are being undone right now,” Olguín-Tayler said. “What good is perpetuity if things that need to be addressed urgently aren’t given more resources so that we’re addressing structural changes now, instead of dealing with the symptoms in the future?”
