“What do you need?” It may be one of the simple questions a funder can ask, and one of the most transformative. In this moment, that question carries new urgency. Across our communities, nonprofits are under real strain, taking on more risk and doing more with fewer resources. Philanthropy is being called to respond. The question isn’t whether to act, but how.
For us, that answer began with a simple practice. What started as a staff effort to better understand community needs has reshaped how we show up as a foundation. Today, our board is asking: What are we hearing from grantees? What should that mean for our decisions?
That practice has shifted how we engage. We see nonprofit leaders not just as applicants or grant recipients, but as civic leaders, changemakers, and stewards of their communities. Through listening, a deeper understanding has taken shape, and with it, our role has expanded from a due diligence function to a resource partner in a shared mission.
At the same time, listening on its own isn’t enough. For it to inform decisions in a meaningful and practical way, it has to be grounded in clarity—about who we are as a funder, what we stand for, and the focus and priorities that drive our work.
Listening as a Practice, Not a Lunch Meeting
We didn’t arrive at this approach overnight. Listening required us to slow down and change how we show up with grantees—not as gatekeepers of funding, but as partners navigating complex, fast-changing realities.
Rather than assuming we knew what our partners needed, we let nonprofits lead the conversation and asked simple, open-ended questions:
- What would be helpful right now?
- What’s getting in the way?
- What would accelerate or deepen your work?
What we heard was consistent. Many nonprofit leaders are navigating more than funding gaps: they’re managing capacity constraints, leadership transitions, increased risks, and rising expectations around technology and data.
At the same time, they’re also contending with pressures created within philanthropy itself: compliance requirements, complex reporting, and assumptions about how quickly deeply rooted challenges can be solved—all within a volatile and rapidly shifting environment.
Letting Grantee Needs Shape Our Support
Listening often surfaces needs beyond our expectations. As funders, the number one thing we hear is that nonprofits need more funding: closely followed by a call for unrestricted operating dollars, sustained through multi-year support. The need is real, and we’re not always able to fill those gaps. But listening closely also revealed something subtler: access to funding is often shaped by a nonprofit’s ability to clearly communicate mission, strategy, and impact.
Listening made clear that one way we could strengthen the nonprofit ecosystem is by improving grantees’ ability to compete for diverse, larger funding sources. That insight led us to offer AI-assisted grant writing workshops through a trusted firm. AI is controversial, but one reality is hard to ignore: the sector tasked with some of the most urgent and complex work is often the least equipped with the tools and capacity it needs. For us, this training is about access and equity—helping level the playing field and giving stretched nonprofits more time for mission work.
Listening has also surfaced opportunities that would never appear in a traditional funding request, like supporting a succession planning cohort, governance trainings, and real-time legal and strategic guidance. None of this replaces grantmaking; it complements it. Through ongoing listening, we learn alongside our partners: what worked, what helped, what didn’t, and how we can improve.
Why Focus and Alignment Made This Possible
We could only respond this way because we had done our internal homework. Our board and staff had gotten really clear about our values, focus, and resources. That alignment shapes not just what we fund, but how we make decisions and how we deploy our full range of assets, relationships, and influence.
That clarity matters. When needs surface outside traditional grantmaking—individual or sector challenges, barriers to impact, or the volatile changes unfolding around us—we don’t panic or default to “that’s not what we do.” Instead, we pause and ask: Does this align with our values and strategy? Do we have the resources to make a difference? Is there anything preventing us from offering support? Clarity gives us the flexibility and confidence to respond.
Catalytic Leadership in Practice
For us, catalytic leadership is both a posture and a practice. It means using listening as a genuine decision-making tool and being willing to take chances in response to what our partners need, grounded in a clear sense of who we are and what we stand for.
Over time, this practice has expanded how our board approaches its role: expanding general operating and multi-year support, distributing beyond the 5% minimum, and making early catalytic commitments that helped unlock larger regional investments.
In this moment, philanthropy is being asked to respond while nonprofits absorb more risk with fewer resources. This is how we show up: we listen, we stay clear on our values, and we act in alignment.
About the Author
Lauren Scott is Executive Director of the Harris and Eliza Kempner Fund.