Trust-Based Philanthropy: Why Backing People Is As Important As Backing Ideas
Featuring: Geena Dunne and Anne Pike (Co-founder of Roberts Pike Foundation)
When Geena Dunne founded The Cova Project in 2019, she did so with a simple conviction: period poverty should not determine a girl's future. Nearly eight years later, her organisation has distributed over 45,000 menstrual cups across Liberia, Ghana, Uganda, and Australia, transforming access to menstrual health for thousands of young women. But none of this could have been achieved without the support of donors that trusted in the organisation.
Trust-based philanthropy is a philosophy that has gained momentum in sophisticated philanthropic circles globally. It requires something fundamentally different from the traditional funding model that has dominated the non-profit sector for decades. It requires genuine connection. And it requires donors willing to step back from the role of decision-maker and into the role of partner.
The distinction might seem subtle, but its implications are profound. The difference lies in a concept borrowed from venture capital: backing the jockey, not the horse. In private equity and venture capital, investors understood something decades ago that philanthropy is only now catching up to. You back the founder because they are the one with vision, with commitment, with the drive that comes from true purpose. They are the ones who will make sacrifices to drive the success of the organisation. You assess their character, their conviction, their ability to navigate obstacles. Then you trust them to do what they were built to do. In much of traditional philanthropy, the relationship operates differently. With the best intentions, donors often shape their giving around specific project outcomes and predetermined frameworks. They become stewards of particular initiatives rather than believers in the organisations leading the work.
The problem with this approach is not always visible in quarterly reports. It manifests in subtler, more damaging ways. When an organisation knows that sharing challenges with a funder could jeopardise future funding, they stop sharing challenges altogether. They polish the narrative. They hide the messy reality of solving complex problems. They chase metrics instead of mission. And donors, sitting across the table from organisations trained to tell them only what they want to hear, mistake polished presentations for actual progress.
This power imbalance is the invisible architecture that shapes so much of traditional giving. It is not intentional, and it is not always obvious. But it fundamentally alters the relationship between funder and organisation from one of partnership to one of hierarchy.
Philanthropist, Anne Pike one of the founders of Roberts Pike Foundation says, “Givers shouldn’t be determining how an organisation uses their donation. They’re not the expert. They don’t have the solutions and they’re not doing the work. If they want to support an organisation, let that organisation determine what to do with the donation. Using a donation to pay for something mundane like the electricity bill or admin costs might be precisely what’s needed.”
Mackenzie Scott, the philanthropist and former Amazon executive, has become perhaps the most visible champion of trust-based giving in recent years. Her approach is instructive. Rather than directing organisations toward pre-determined outcomes, Scott has given away billions of dollars with remarkably few strings attached. She funds organisations led by people from marginalised communities. She provides unrestricted funds that allow organisations to determine their own priorities. She has publicly stated that she trusts the leaders of organisations to know what their communities need better than she does. In interviews, she has explained that her role is not to shape organisations in her image, but to amplify the work that is already happening.
The evidence supports this approach. When organisations receive flexible, unrestricted funding, they innovate more freely. They respond more nimbly to community needs. They are not forced to distort their work to fit a predetermined funding framework. Most importantly, leaders can be honest about challenges without fear of repercussions. The path to impact is rarely linear, and the windy road driven by true values often leads somewhere far better than the straight line drawn on a spreadsheet.
The Cova Project has been lucky enough to find this relationship with Anne Pike. "Anne sits down and says, ‘tell me everything that's going on. The good, the bad, the ugly. Tell me the truth’." Geena explains. "We get to have really honest and in-depth conversations about the work. Who's doing what. What challenges we've come up against. How we've overcome them. It's a pleasure to share challenges with somebody who trusts you and believes in you and knows that you can overcome obstacles."
This is the inverse of the typical dynamic. Rather than challenges triggering concern, they become evidence of the organisation's capacity to navigate complexity. When Geena raises a problem, Anne does not respond with alarm or new conditions. She responds with genuine curiosity. What is happening? How will you solve it? What do you need?
“When entering the world of giving for the first time, I took steps to find out what would make our foundation most useful to organisations that we were looking to support. Not having a specific skill set to offer and not being an expert in the field of international development, I knew that I wasn’t the one who should determine how our grants should be put to use. Bit by bit I discovered that the best thing I could do was to trust my instinct to identify good people with good ideas who were doing their best to make a difference in their communities. Once I had identified who those people were, it was an easy step to trust them to decide how to use the funds that we were willing to give to them in the most effective way possible.” Anne says.
Anne's investment philosophy is remarkably human. She looks people in the eye, listens to what they say, and assesses whether she believes them. If she trusts their conviction and knows they'll make decisions aligned with their values, she donates. She refers to this as an "unsophisticated funding strategy". Geena strongly disagrees.
"I think it makes for a high-EQ, sophisticated investor," Geena says. "It requires a real level of emotional intelligence that we quite often don't apply to financial decisions. But giving is not just about financial decisions. Philanthropic giving is about deeply human connection and human decisions."
This is perhaps the most important insight buried in trust-based philanthropy. The sector treats giving as though it were primarily a financial transaction. It applies the language of venture capital, of ROI, of efficiency metrics and output targets. Yet this language is fundamentally misaligned with what giving actually is. Giving is about amplifying human experience. It is about trying to ensure that more people get a fair shot. It is, at its core, a deeply human endeavour. Done well, both giver and receiver benefit.
When Geena looks participants of The Cova Project in the eye, she can tell whether they are truly using a menstrual cup or just telling her what she wants to hear, that is instinct honed into skill. It is the same instinct that Anne brings to her assessment of non profit leaders. Can you tell if what they are saying is real or inflated? Can you sense their genuine conviction? Can you trust that when difficulties arise, they will navigate them in a way that serves their community first and everything else second?
This brings us to a crucial question for donors considering a shift toward trust-based giving: how do you actually do it?
The answer is not to abandon due diligence. In fact, the opposite is true. Trust-based giving requires more rigorous assessment, not less. But that assessment looks different.
Start with genuine digging. Look at the organisation's financials, absolutely. Understand how money flows and whether systems are in place. But then ask different questions. What decisions has this organisation made that reflect their values? How do they talk about their community? Are they in service to their beneficiaries, or are beneficiaries in service to their metrics? How does the leader treat people? What do staff members say about working there? Is the vision genuinely held by the organisation, or is it a poster on a wall?
Then assess values alignment. Does the way this organisation thinks about change align with how you think about change? Do they prioritise community leadership? Do they understand the importance of sustainability? Are they attempting to solve root problems or stick Band-Aids on systemic issues that look good now?
Finally, commit to knowing the jockey. Who is leading this organisation? What is their conviction? What is their track record of navigating complexity? If this organisation faced unexpected challenges, if the world shifted, if their community asked them to pivot in a direction they did not anticipate, how would they respond? Would they respond in a way that would make you proud?
Once you have made that assessment and decided to invest, the relationship changes. You stop being an overseer and become a partner. You ask questions not to test but to understand. You share challenges not with alarm but with genuine partnership.
This is what Geena experiences with the Roberts Pike Foundation. "It's not just about results," she explains. "It's not just about updates where you only share that things are getting bigger and better. It's about taking them on the journey of the staff, the experiences happening within the organisation, the incredible impacts we're having in areas we weren't expecting but might have to lean into because the community is calling for it. We're moving away from old-school international development."
The movement toward trust-based philanthropy aligns with a broader shift in international development away from the paternalistic models that have dominated for decades. The white saviour complex, the notion that external experts know what communities need, the top-down imposition of solutions. These are being replaced by models that centre community leadership and trust local expertise.
The Australian International Development Network, which both Geena and Anne are involved with, has formalised this shift through their Better Giving Framework. The framework guides donors and organisations toward practices that actually deliver sustainable change.
For those donors ready to explore trust based philanthropy, the rewards are profound. You get to invest not just in organisations but in movements. You get to back leaders who are reshaping the world according to their values, not according to predetermined frameworks. You get to be part of something real, something honest, something that actually serves the communities it aims to.
“Change happens when an individual is motivated to find ways to make improvements in their community. Geena has invested her efforts into finding local partners who know their communities and who know just what a difference they can make. That’s the motivation and that’s the key to success.” Anne says.
“You might dismiss a menstrual cup as being something insignificant, but then through listening and learning to those who know and understand comes the profound realisation that that small, simple menstrual cup can be totally life changing. It makes lives better. The complete joy for me of being part of a movement like The Cova Project is simply knowing that we are making lives better in some of the most vulnerable communities across Africa.”
