Fundraising Success Story of the Year – Philanthropy Awards, 2023

Following a few years of chaotic change and disruption, it’s tempting to view 2023 as a year in which philanthropy slid back into its comfy, often frustrating norms. 

After all, data is emerging to suggest that there was not, and there probably won’t be, any sweeping revolution to democratize philanthropy. Most funders, it turns out, still see MacKenzie Scott’s massive, no-strings funding as an anomaly rather than a model they can follow. Murmurs of fatigue and even legal threats to racial justice philanthropy threaten to undo the progress made in the aftermath of the 2020 uprising. Even giving to climate change, which was finally booming for a couple of years there, seems to have leveled out to its lackluster sliver of annual giving.