In this SHORT episode of Purposely, we’re back with Rose Challies – founder and director of Terra Nova Foundation – on the uncomfortable truths about how philanthropy actually works, and what it would look like if funders finally put people at the centre.
Rose has a view that cuts through a lot of the noise in this space: we’re not funding projects. We’ve never been funding projects. We’re funding humans to do change making. The sooner philanthropy gets honest about that, the sooner we’ll start backing the right things in the right ways.
She’s direct about the damage done by short-term funding. A 12-month grant is effectively a six-month grant, because six months in, people are already scanning the job pages. The people holding up some of the most important work in our communities have no security, and the sector treats that as normal. Rose doesn’t.
On the power dynamics in philanthropy, she’s clear-eyed. If you control resources that someone else needs, that is a power relationship, whether you intend it to be or not. The best funders understand this and work actively to shift it. The rest… don’t always notice.
Rose also challenges the widespread assumption that philanthropic expertise is somehow optional. She compares it to medicine: we all have some understanding of health, but we don’t all call ourselves doctors. Understanding what poverty or environmental harm looks like from the outside is different from understanding how to change it. That distinction matters, and the sector doesn’t always honour it.
And on the ‘no core funding’ trend she’s seeing from more and more funders: please pay the people doing the work. Even a contribution to someone’s salary, alongside others, makes a difference. Refusing to fund people while demanding their expertise and impact is, in Rose’s words, the biggest travesty in the sector right now.
Key Themes
• Why philanthropy funds people, not projects – and why we should say so
• The real cost of 12-month grants and the insecurity baked into charity work
• Power dynamics in funder-grantee relationships – and how to navigate them
• Philanthropic expertise as a genuine discipline – not a nice-to-have
• The ‘no core funding’ trend and why it undermines the sector
• Backing change makers directly: what it looks like and why it works
• The difference between administrative grant making and change making philanthropy
• New Zealand as a place to try things – and why that opportunity is worth protecting
This episode of Purposely is brought to you by Benevity and Trust Investments.
