Opinion

A Wisconsin area known as the Fox Cities is showing what’s possible when individuals are given the support needed to bridge divides and work together to create healthy and hopeful communities.

With the release this week of guidelines for building trust in the philanthropic world, the head of the Council on Foundations is calling on grant makers to hold each other accountable for maintaining high ethical standards.

As donors themselves, volunteer fundraisers understand what makes potential donors tick — and often in ways the professionals don’t. Greater respect for their skills and increased collaboration with development staff are sorely needed.

More than 25 million Americans suffer from rare diseases, yet research and advocacy to combat these illnesses receive limited philanthropic support. Grant makers have an obligation to make addressing rare diseases part of their efforts to ensure that everyone has access to care.

As in other conflicts around the globe, sustaining donor interest in the war in Ukraine is an ongoing battle. But grant makers can have a lasting impact if they focus on building strong, stable, and peaceful societies.

The perceived messy work of building movements often scares away grant makers, but these efforts are critical to creating equitable societies. Donors need to adopt new practices and strategies to measure and support them.

Its free money for nonprofits came with a cost. It led groups to push aside fundamental beliefs to accept easy cash from a corporate behemoth whose business model harms the very communities they aim to protect.

Recent surveys showing a decrease in volunteering largely blame the pandemic, but the problem isn’t new. Nonprofits need to figure out how to turn Americans’ desire to lend a hand to neighbors into more formal commitments to help their communities.

When others doubted me, one man showed his faith in my ambition to become a business leader. Today, I’m putting that same trust in the grantees and low-income mothers my foundation supports.

Addressing myriad societal problems depends on a strong rule of law. Unfortunately, developing, promoting, and enforcing this fundamental component of healthy democracies isn’t on most donor radars.