Most foundation giving today still follows a paternalistic model established during the Gilded Age by industrialists like Andrew Carnegie. In his 1889 essay, The Gospel of Wealth, Carnegie writes:
The man of wealth thus becoming the mere agent and trustee for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.
After nearly 150 years of philanthropic paternalism, inequality has exploded. According to Oxfam, the US is home to more billionaires than any other country, yet over 40% of the population is poor or low income. It’s clear that this model has not delivered a better world.
Trust-based philanthropy takes aim at one of Carnegie’s core beliefs: that the wealthy know better than the recipients of charitable donations. It envisions a world where “philanthropic systems and structures reflect the needs and dreams of communities.”
Rachel’s Network Member Marion Rockefeller Weber realized this before “trust-based philanthropy” was even in the lexicon. She started what she called a Flow Fund Circle in 1991 to shift philanthropic decision-making from those with wealth to those with lived experience or professional expertise.
In the flow funding model, a donor entrusts a grant to a select group of individuals to determine where and how to distribute the funds. Usually new flow funders have never been philanthropists in the traditional sense.
Rachel’s Network has received a generous gift from Weber to establish a flow fund circle starting in 2026. This fund will enable a group of ten flow funders to distribute $10,000 grants to organizations of their choosing each year. Flow funders will be comprised of a select group of Rachel’s Network Catalyst Award alumni who have deep roots in community.
“We’re so happy to be able to launch the first flow fund at Rachel’s Network thanks to Marion’s grant,” said Rachel’s Network President Fern Shepard. “As Marion’s decades of flow funding shows, those closest to the work better recognize situations where a financial gift could have a transformative effect on people’s lives, and this fund will enable us to facilitate that.”
The 2026 Rachel’s Network flow funders include: Erika Allen, Dr. P. Qasimah Boston, Helga Garcia Garza, Annel Hernandez, Dr. Na’Taki Jelks Osborne, Dr. Tiara Moore, Dr. Nikki Traylor-Knowles, Nse Obot Witherspoon, and Dan Xie.
While we should press for long term structural policy change on wealth inequality, funders can start practicing a more democratic form of philanthropy today by adopting communal giving practices like flow funding. If you’d like to contribute to expand our flow fund, please email shreya@rachelsnetwork.org.