I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of philanthropy. 

Specifically, how funders engage with and invest in communities and nonprofits. Most nonprofits have an ambivalent relationship with philanthropy. They need funding to survive, but also wished they didn’t have to depend on philanthropy to sustain their work and livelihood.

You know your community better than your funder. Yet funders often have the upper hand as they hold the purse strings. 

However, there’s a phrase that goes: “Those who are closest to the problem, are closest to the solution“. This suggests that the people most familiar with or deeply connected to a problem are usually better equipped at finding the solution.

I’ve heard this phrase before, and recently read it in Nonprofit Quarterly’s article “Why Grantmakers Need to Break Their Restriction Habit—Permanently“. The article, focusing on the unintended harm restricted grantmaking has caused to nonprofit organizations and the communities they serve, proposed a new solution:

“Restricted grants imply that funders can see more than the nonprofit about the need, the situation on the ground, the best way to respond. The funders who actually think this way are few and far between. More common are the funders who believe what I believe—that those closest to the problem are closest to the solution; that nonprofit leaders have better, real-time information to make smarter choices than I ever could; and that nearly all nonprofit leaders are creative, smart, and honest.”

“Those closest to the problem are closest to the solution” is reflective of how nonprofits can make impact over time. Here’s how you can leverage this: