Five Levels of Philanthropic Field Leadership

One of the most leveraged things you can do with your own giving is to influence others to give more and better.

As you rise to this challenge, there are five levels of leadership for the field. In which of these ways are you called to be a leader? What larger contribution is trying to happen through you and your philanthropy?

1. Exemplar/Practitioner

This is about walking the walk as an exemplar of good practice in the field of philanthropy. It could be that your main goal is simply to do your own giving well. Perhaps you have never had any conscious aspiration to lead the field. Here’s the good news: doing your own giving with joy and impact is an important act of leadership, period. You are part of the system, and what you do changes the system, by definition. Showing up as a quiet exemplar is a great contribution in itself.

2. Thought Leader

The next step beyond serving as an exemplar is to play the role of thought leader. This is about sharing what you are doing and learning through your giving in a deliberate way. Not everyone feels like they have the time or comfort to do this. However, if you feel called to this level of leadership, here are several options for you.

First, you can help others save time, give more, and give better by making your portfolio an open book. This can be especially helpful if you have made a large investment in diligence and sourcing. You don’t need to keep the secret of your success locked away in a vault. Quite the opposite. In the philanthropic space, if you’ve found a path to giving with joy and impact, there’s little reason not to share your full roadmap.

It’s also important to have a frank and open discussion of what hasn’t worked. We don’t see enough of this in philanthropy. One reason is that donors don’t want to do even more damage to the grantees they are stepping away from. Why add insult to injury by making it harder for them to raise money from other funders as well? But what if you had a different view of what’s at stake? Let’s imagine a house on fire where you discover the main stairway is blocked by a fallen ceiling. You would let everyone else know so others could focus their life-saving efforts on a different path. You would also help anyone still inside the house who needed to find a better way out.

Finally, share your questions. Don’t be afraid to make clear the active edge of your own learning as a philanthropist.

3. Convener

Creating spaces in which donors can learn from each other, grantees, and others on the front lines can be an incredibly valuable leadership contribution to the field. One reason the pace of cultural change in philanthropy is so slow is that the work is often carried out in isolation. This was certainly a key reason Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett joined forces in 2010 to launch the Giving Pledge, a voluntary movement in which high-capacity donors publicly express their commitment to give away at least half their wealth. The Giving Pledge also creates a space to convene its members in a learning community of peers that is professionally staffed and supported. Likewise, Schmidt Futures has played a leading role by convening a community of philanthropy advisors through the P150 initiative, building on the insight that a great way to help other high-capacity donors gear up their giving is to better equip and interconnect the people who advise them.

You, too, can take action to shift the culture of philanthropy in your own way. Gathering even a handful of folks to explore what you are learning makes a difference. If in-person gatherings aren’t your thing, virtual convening has lots of value too. What if you interviewed one of your outstanding grantees and shared this with other donors?

As you bring others together, be aware that creating pitch-free zones can be important. Often, other donors don’t want to get overwhelmed with asks. Find ways to bring people together on their own terms and on a non-transactional basis.

4. Trusted Advisor and Coach

Another level of field leadership is coaching and advising. This is where you show up as a trusted advisor to fellow philanthropists. What does it take to be a trusted advisor? Let’s run through the list of attributes.

Trusted advisors:

• Keep visionary social impact as the North Star for themselves and those they advise.
• Focus on the needs of those they advise, not their own needs.
• Help other donors realize their highest selves through their giving.
• Help those they advise find positive outlets to meet lower-level needs.
• Refrain from relying on the advising relationship to meet their own lower-level needs for security, excitement, status, and connection.
• Seek and speak the truth to everyone, including their advisees and themselves.
• Seek understanding and solutions from those closest to the issues at hand.
• Acknowledge the limits of their own knowledge, skills, and mindset and search out their own blind spots and biases.
• Provide course corrections that are both empathetic and unfailing.
• Treat those they advise and everyone else with consideration, not contempt.
• Engage collaboratively with other donors and practitioners about their ideas and remain open to being influenced by the ideas of others.
• Use persuasion and inspiration when appropriate, but never pressure tactics of manipulation.
• Show up as encouraging coaches in their advisee’s corner, believing in that person’s potential for meaningful giving even when the advisee might not.
• Provide options to choose from, not answers to install.

If this path is appealing to you, here are some further suggestions for how to elevate your qualities as a trusted advisor:

• Commit to the daily pursuit of personal growth (and joy!) across all areas of your own life.
• Be part of mastermind groups.
• Understand, evolve, and elevate your own psychology.
• Get serious about the fundamentals of your own wellness: sleep, nutrition, movement, and mindfulness.
• Work with a coach yourself. The further you go in your own journey of growth, the more you can propel others.
• Get trained as a coach.

While there are certainly preparations you can make to lean into the role of advisor and coach, don’t be afraid to simply get started. You can add tremendous value in this role without being an expert or a perfect exemplar. You simply need to be open to listening deeply and sharing your own experience frankly. Despite the name, one of the most effective ways to build trust as an advisor is not to give advice. Instead, share your experience. You rarely know enough about someone else’s specific circumstances to give them advice that truly fits. It is far more valuable to share the most relevant aspects of your own experience. Afterward, the advisee can decide how best to apply that experience in their own context.

5. Transcendent Power Shifter and Systemic Change Agent

The next level up as field leader is to transcend yourself completely. This is about showing up in ways that shift power and promote systemic change on the issues that matter most. This is what you do when you focus on helping others take their own leadership to the highest possible level. You support others to exert profound agency in their own ways over the systems that have held them back. This is where restorative philanthropy or philanthropy as reparations comes from. It isn’t even remotely about you when you are in this stage of field leadership. Many people may never even know about the profundity of your contribution. Consider Emil Schwarzhaupt and the foundation he left as a legacy to carry out their mission in the twenty-five years after his death in the early 1950s. The foundation’s leadership set aside ego to work behind the scenes on building leadership in others. In the process, they made profound contributions to the movement-building infrastructure of the Civil Rights Movement—from the United Farm Workers to Saul Alinsky to the Highlander Folk School and the Freedom Riders.

When you have transcended yourself, you truly make the greatest possible impact on systemic change. Along the way, you are very likely to find deep joy in elevating others and helping them actualize their own potential. If there’s an ultimate meaning to life, perhaps this is it: to grow into your own full potential to better help others reach theirs. To say it even more simply, the meaning of life is a life of meaning.

To what level of leadership in the field do you aspire?

The five levels we’ve looked at here are not necessarily a sequential progression. Whatever level feels like the right fit for you now, take on the challenge of reaching at least one level beyond that comfort zone. This is how, together, we can truly accelerate change in a field that so desperately needs reinvention and reinvigoration. Change starts with you, and that change starts from within. As you gear up your giving and commit to change the world for real, remember that it begins with the person in the mirror.