DOI
10.9707/1944-5660.1727
Key Points
Funder listening is an essential complement to community participation to disrupt white dominant culture habits that entrench the status quo of hierarchy and power. Community-centered listening, combined with participatory processes, offers funders an opportunity to shift in deep and sustainable ways from an individualistic, “power over” orientation to interdependent relationships with community partners.
In this article, two practitioners of equity and participatory philanthropy share how funder listening and community participation form a potent combination to help funders confront their own power and use it intentionally to honor and bolster community ownership and agency.
Drawing on the authors’ direct experience, this article features case examples of diverse funders who are on the path to shifting power through listening and participatory processes, and points to tools we have developed and/or use regularly with funders to enable power relationships and structures to shift.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Gulati-Partee, G., & Love, K. (2025). Listening and Participation Prime Funders to Honor and Build Community Ownership. The Foundation Review, 17(2). https://doi.org/10.9707/1944-5660.1727
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