A shift in philanthropy discourse
Over the coming months, SIX will be sharing our tracking and interrogation of how the discourse around philanthropy has shifted, or not, after the profoundly impactful events of 2020. We are looking for themes that have been lost in the noise, and trends that have become louder; we are searching for signals about what has already gained, and what may still gain, traction and attention. We are examining, in a light-touch way, what the implications of this might be for our funder friends in the SIX’s Funders Node and beyond.
The first year of the new decade was not how we thought it would turn out. In January 2020, our inboxes were full of reports of optimism, setting 2020 in the context of a challenging previous decade. Despite what we were seeing happening in China, none of these reports predicted the damage the pandemic would have globally. Even in the Spring when Covid-19 was spreading rapidly across the West, many were optimistic that things would settle by the Autumn.
One of the privileges of SIX is our ability to take a global, birdseye view. We are able to spot and drive new trends and track how things change. Covid-19 is not the only tragic event of 2020 that influenced narratives and discourse around the world - there were also protests for democracy in Thailand and Hong Kong, the explosion in Lebanon, the worldwide rallying cry that Black Lives Matter… How many of the questions brought up by these events are still live in 2021, and for who? What's changed? These sorts of analyses act like timestamps for us, benchmarking our progress as a field, and helping us to reflect on where philanthropy has come from and where it can become more authentic and effective in its work going forwards.
How has the discourse around philanthropy shifted after the events of 2020?