GEO 2025 Annual Report
Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) is a community of funders committed to transforming philanthropic culture and practice. With racial equity as a core commitment, we envision courageous grantmakers working in service of nonprofits and communities to create a just, connected and inclusive society where all can thrive.
Dear GEO Community,
2025 asked something different of us. Federal funding rollbacks, executive actions and a volatile political climate put tremendous pressure on the nonprofits and communities at the core of our collective work. Through it all, the GEO community didn’t retreat. You stepped further in, and so did we.
Reflecting on the past year, three key examples what our community accomplished together.
In January, we wrote to this community about staying steadfast and strategic amid uncertainty, especially when working toward racial equity. Over the course of the year, the GEO community chose to keep building, even when the ground felt unstable. Our members showed up and continued to learn and grapple alongside each other, telling hard truths, examining the culture of philanthropy and making real shifts in practice.
Throughout 2025, our communities experienced mounting challenges, from increased state violence against immigrants to legal challenges targeting nonprofits working for justice. Our sector strained to keep up. Nonetheless, we worked together to mobilize resources, develop creative strategies and navigate change. GEO members lifted up examples of meaningful shifts in philanthropic practice to better meet the needs of nonprofits and communities.
Our 2025 National Study of Philanthropic Practice confirmed what we've long believed: when equity is central to strategy, practice change follows. Multiyear funding and general operating support have increased significantly since 2017. Yet support for capacity building has slipped while nonprofits face more strain than ever. The GEO community knows the work isn't finished, and as our membership grows, we also know we are not in it alone.
Read on for more of what our community built in 2025. Thank you for staying with us in this work, especially in a year that asked so much. We're honored to walk alongside you in service of nonprofits and communities.
Vice President, Grantmaking,
Bush Foundation
2025 by the Numbers
In 2025, GEO offered members and the broader philanthropic community opportunities to connect, learn and collaborate in service of transforming philanthropic culture and practice.
How We Create Change
GEO's strategic direction guides our work to strengthen philanthropic culture and practice so grantmakers can better serve nonprofits and communities. Grounded in our commitment to intersectional racial equity, this strategy focuses on four interconnected areas: culture, practice, learning and community.
Together, these goals help grantmakers deepen their racial equity analysis, advance responsive and equitable practices, foster an equity-centered learning mindset and collaborate within a larger ecosystem. The stories that follow highlight how GEO and our community put these goals into practice in 2025.
Culture
We shape the culture of philanthropy by providing a professional home base that meets grantmakers where they are, offering support and challenge to advance racial equity.
Supporting the GEO Community Amid Mounting Challenges
As nonprofits and communities faced targeted attacks in 2025, GEO responded with timely resources and practical support for grantmakers. We offered guidance for remaining steadfast and supporting communities in the face of challenges to our values and vision for change, while encouraging grantmakers to meet the moment with responsive grantmaking practices.
In partnership with Trust-Based Philanthropy Project and the National Center for Family Philanthropy, GEO launched Meet the Moment, a sector-wide call to action encouraging funders to stand in solidarity with nonprofits and communities, practice trust-based philanthropy, and use our power and platform to protect and defend the social sector.
- Trust-Based Philanthropy Project
- National Center for Family Philanthropy
Foundations of Racial Equity Virtual Series
In partnership with Northern California Grantmakers (NCG) and SoCal Grantmakers (SCG), GEO continued to expand the Foundations of Racial Equity (FRE) Virtual Series as a national offering. Over five weeks, FRE blended faculty-led learning with peer reflection to help philanthropic practitioners understand how anti-Black racism and white supremacy influence the field of philanthropy, and to help them apply a racial equity analysis to their work and identify opportunities for action.
- Northern California Grantmakers
- SoCal Grantmakers
Equity-Embedded Change Management™
Created in 2024 and facilitated by Sheryl Petty, Ed.D of Movement Tapestries, EECM™ was a cohort-based learning community for experienced equity practitioners. This program provided additional resources, capacity building and community to help participants navigate resistance and other challenges while advancing equity-centered change. Over two years, 34 philanthropic practitioners participated in EECM™. Alumni continue to offer one another real-time experimentation and support to advance equity-embedded change management.
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Practice
We support grantmakers in moving from knowledge to action through tailored resources, connections and opportunities to learn and practice.
Remote Learning Series
In 2025, GEO offered two Remote Learning Series — Community-Driven Philanthropy and Embedding Effective Practice. These interactive, virtual learning opportunities created supportive spaces for grantmakers to deepen their equity-centered practice, share challenges, exchange ideas and learn from others in the field.
Participants explored grantmaking practices that build trust, shift power and strengthen relationships with grantees and communities; applied tools, resources and fresh insights to their daily work; and built momentum for change through peer coaching, interactive sessions and real-time reflection. A total of 62 participants took part across both series.
Of the Remote Learning Series participants who completed the post-program surveys:
Role-Based Convenings
In 2025, GEO hosted five role-based convenings for president/board pairs, presidents/CEOs and senior leaders. These sessions were designed around the particular needs of each role, creating a confidential and intimate container for deep connection, resource sharing, thought partnership and peer coaching, as well as an ongoing supportive community of peers to help leaders more effectively advance equitable organizational culture and practice change.
Of the 2025 Fall Senior Leader Convening participants:
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Learning
We create supportive and challenging spaces where grantmakers learn from communities, nonprofits and one another, equipping them to change their mindsets and practices.
2025 National Study of Philanthropic Practice
Since 2008, GEO's National Study of Philanthropic Practice — the only survey of all staffed foundations in the United States — has tracked sector-wide trends in effective grantmaking practices. Drawing on responses from 765 grantmakers, the 2025 study shows where progress has been made and where philanthropy still has opportunities for growth.
2025 findings include the following:
Nearly three-quarters of grantmakers (74 percent) report that diversity, equity and inclusion are somewhat or very central to their organization’s strategy.
Funders who say diversity, equity and inclusion are very central are more likely to involve focus populations in decision-making and engage in participatory grantmaking.
Our survey found that 42 percent of funders engage in participatory grantmaking.
Multiyear funding is now provided by 87 percent of grantmakers, and median general operating support has risen to 38 percent of grantmaking budgets after nearly two decades at 20 percent.
More than half of endowed grantmakers spend more than 5 percent of their assets annually.
Only 77 percent of grantmakers provide capacity-building support — down from 86 percent in 2017 — even as nonprofit needs continue to grow.
80 percent of funders require grantees to conduct evaluations, yet 38 percent do not provide funding to cover the cost.
GEO 2025 Learning Conference
In May 2025, GEO and the North Carolina Network of Grantmakers welcomed 492 participants, including 79 speakers to Charlotte, North Carolina, for the 2025 Learning Conference. Through plenaries, short talks and breakout sessions, participants explored how learning and evaluation can build resilience, deepen understanding and strengthen philanthropic practice. Programming covered topics including storytelling, asset-framing, power building and artificial intelligence, giving participants new ideas and practical tools to reflect, adapt and strengthen their work.
Participants who completed the post-conference survey reported leaving with ideas they could put into practice:
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Community
We promote cross-sector opportunities for grantmakers to learn and partner with community leaders, nonprofits, government agencies and businesses.
Community-Driven Philanthropy: Participation, Power and Partnership
In March 2025, GEO published Community-Driven Philanthropy: Participation, Power and Partnership, a resource that provides grantmakers with tools for advancing community-driven practices. Grounded in the idea that grantmaking is most equitable and effective when it meaningfully engages and includes a broad and diverse set of voices — including nonprofits, communities and key partners — the publication amplifies examples from the GEO community and highlights resources that help grantmakers advance an equity-centered approach to community-driven philanthropy.
Listen to Community
GEO joined Listen to Community, a joint effort committed to community-centered philanthropy grounded in listening, which includes Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, Feedback Labs, Fund for Shared Insight, National Center for Family Philanthropy, The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy and Native Americans in Philanthropy.
Our goal is to have more grantmaking leaders and staff engage in listening practices that shift power to impacted communities.
Through blogs that center nonprofit voices and webinars that bring grantmakers together to discuss implementation tools, resources and opportunities for embedded listening practices, Listen to Community provides a pathway to shift philanthropic culture and practice
- Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy
- Feedback Labs
- Fund for Shared Insight
- National Center for Family Philanthropy
- National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy
- Native Americans in Philanthropy
Supporters
GEO would like to thank the many organizations that provide resources to GEO to support a shared vision for transforming philanthropic culture and practice.
General Operation and Program Support
- Angell Foundation
- Bainum Family Foundation
- Barr Foundation
- Blue Shield of California Foundation
- The California Endowment
- California Health Care Foundation
- Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
- The David and Lucile Packard Foundation
- Deaconess Foundation
- Dogwood Health Trust
- The Dyson Foundation
- Elmina B. Sewall Foundation
- Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund
- Ford Foundation
- Fund for Shared Insight
- GHR Foundation
- The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation
- iF, A Foundation for Radical Possibility
- Jessie Ball duPont Fund
- John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
- Kenneth Rainin Foundation
- Meyer Foundation
- Missouri Foundation for Health
- Moses Taylor Foundation
- Robert Sterling Clark Foundation
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
- The Skillman Foundation
- Surdna Foundation
- Tides
- Weingart Foundation
- William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
- Woods Fund Chicago
- WITH Foundation
- W.K. Kellogg Foundation
2025 Learning Conference Supporters
- a)plan coaching
- Ascendium Education Group
- BDO
- bi3
- Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation
- Bonterra
- Bush Foundation
- Camber Foundation
- CareQuest Institute for Oral Health
- CBIZ
- Community Foundation of Louisville
- Community IT
- Cypress Fund
- Democracy Fund
- Dogwood Health Trust
- The Duke Endowment
- Engage R+D
- Equal Measure
- Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
- Fidelity Charitable
- Foundation for the Carolinas
- Grace Communications Foundation
- The Guido A. and Elizabeth H. Binda Foundation
- Health Forward Foundation
- Hollingsworth Funds
- Hopelab
- Humanity United
- John Rex Endowment
- Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust
- The Kresge Foundation
- Laughing Gull Foundation
- The Leon Levine Foundation
- The LIFT Fund
- Lumina Foundation
- Marguerite Casey Foundation
- Mary Black Foundation
- Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation
- McKnight Foundation
- North Carolina Community Foundation
- Oak Foundation
- OMNI Institute
- ORS Impact
- Resilia
- ResultsLab
- SB & Company
- Sertus Partners
- Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina
- The Schott Foundation for Public Education
- Social Insights
- Triangle Community Foundation
- Tzedek Social Justice Fund
- Walton Family Foundation
- Westfuller Advisors
- The Winston-Salem Foundation
- Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation
