What Philea’s 2025 information requests reveal about the sector’s needs

Philea’s knowledge work aspires to help philanthropic organisations make informed decisions through evidence, comparative insight and connection. In 2025, the questions our members and partners brought to our research service offer a snapshot of what the sector is prioritising, and where it is looking for support.

Across 2025, Philea responded to 114 information requests from 68 different organisations. While the research service is designed primarily for full members of Philea, it also attracts interest from external stakeholders seeking to understand European philanthropy, from potential members and strategic partners to policymakers, media, and academics.

Taken together, the year’s request patterns point to three interconnected dynamics:

1. A strong need for “ecosystem orientation” (who is doing what, where, and how).
2. A consistent appetite for practical, adoptable approaches (governance models, management practices, and operational solutions)
3. An emerging signal around AI-related questions cutting across thematic and operational areas.

Below, we unpack what stood out and what it may suggest about the evolution of the sector and its needs.

A service designed for tailored insight and sector-wide capacity

Philea’s research service is one of the ways we translate our knowledge function into practical support for members. Members can pose questions ranging from who is funding in a given thematic or geographic area to how peer organisations operate, and receive relevant data, sector statistics, examples of initiatives and other organisations’ practices, and curated resources.

The service is also intended to strengthen the overall capacity of the philanthropic sector by equipping organisations with evidence, comparative knowledge and a clearer view of emerging trends, enabling more informed choices and more effective practice.

This sits alongside Philea’s broader commitment to open knowledge and sector professionalisation. The Virtual Library brings together 1,000+ free-to-download publications and contributes to our responses to information requests, particularly when sharing references, tools and resources. It is openly accessible beyond our membership, and members can contribute publications that are shared through the IssueLab network and discoverable via WorldCat, extending their reach to wider professional and research audiences.

Research service requests in 2025

In 2025, Philea received 114 information requests, compared to 123 in 2024 and 85 in 2023.

In 2025, requests came from three broad sources:

• Full members: 67 requests (≈59%)
• Non-members: 22 requests (≈19%)
• Philea staff: 25 requests (≈22%) (these are indirectly serving full members)

The predominance of member requests is expected: the service is primarily designed for full members, who receive more comprehensive and tailored responses. These can include members-only information such as contact details, data points from Philea’s database, and examples drawn from internal repositories.

Requests from non-members include lighter guidance using publicly available sources and systematically signposts the Virtual Library.

Finally, the internal use of the service, namely Philea staff requests are used to inform Philea groups’ activities, prepare for interviews, or speaking roles that ultimately serve member needs or the sector’s representations.

What people asked for: A strong emphasis on focus, strategy, and operations

Requests covered a wide range of topics, but certain categories clearly dominated. The most common types of requests in 2025 related to:

• Philanthropic focus (themes, groups, geographies): 49 requests
• Philanthropic strategies, practices and approaches: 27 requests
• Philanthropic operations and management: 20 requests

Other categories appeared less frequently, including other types of questions (10), philanthropic landscape (7) and philanthropic accountability (1).

Across the years, the most frequent questions received can be regrouped around these formats:  

1. “Can you give us a list of foundations that…”
   Often sorted by theme, geography, population focus
2. “How do other foundations manage X?”
   Particularly around risk, governance, strategy processes, internal practices
3. “What are the latest resources on [theme]?”
   Including topics like AI, systems change, collaborations, Philea’s cross-cutting themes (democracy, equality, climate & environment)
4. “Can you provide analytics/data on…”
   Drawing on reports, statistics, resources and bibliographies.

Examples of information requests

In 2025, queries included:

• Requests for lists of foundations or members working on specific topics, such as biomedical research, youth mental health, arts–science intersections, and insurance-linked foundations.
• Interest in innovative governance models, including youth advisory boards and co-executive models.
• Broader questions about sector trends, especially concerning equality, democracy, climate & environment, and Europe’s global role.

What Philea most often provided in response to these questions:

• Curated, structured lists of foundations

• Examples and case studies of practice
• Strategic and ecosystem insights (trends, democracy, equity, climate & environment)
• Frameworks and models, especially around governance
• Contact lists and practitioner recommendations
• Bibliographical references

Across request subjects, several themes appeared repeatedly in 2025, including:

• AI, data and digital tools
• Funding strategies and philanthropic practices
• Climate and environment
• Governance and boards
• Organisational development
• Due diligence
• Fiscal sponsorship

A closer look at PIO requests

In 2025, Philea received 17 requests from philanthropy infrastructure organisations (PIOs) (out of the 67 requests from full members). Within this sample, PIOs tended to skew more towards operational/management questions and less towards strategy/practices compared with the overall dataset. They also showed a preference for practical inputs such as speaker suggestions, lists, concrete examples and data.

This aligns with the role many PIOs play nationally, translating sector-wide themes into programmes, convenings and tools that work for diverse local contexts.

Three functions the service plays and why they matter

Looking across the years, Philea’s research service supported members in three recurring ways:

1. Matchmaker: connecting people and organisations (who is out there, who is similar, who to meet or learn from).
2. Practice library: supplying concrete programmes, case studies and examples that can be adapted.
3. Framing lab: anchoring strategic conversations about democracy, crisis, climate and equity in curated resources and narratives.

What this tells us about the sector and what comes next

Information requests in 2025 indicate:

• Strong and continued demand from members
• A clear focus on thematic expertise and operational guidance
• An emerging signal around AI-related questions across different areas of philanthropy

For Philea, this reinforces our role as a reference point for knowledge, connection and strategic insight.

This article was commissioned as part of Empowering Philanthropy Infrastructure for Change (EPIC), a project co-funded by the European Union.