Equality

Recent global events have amplified awareness of systemic inequalities and historical injustices. These incidents have sparked a societal reckoning with racial, social and economic justice, placing philanthropic organisations themselves under scrutiny for their role in perpetuating or challenging existing power imbalances. A clear line has since been drawn connecting widening inequality and power imbalances to rising polarisation and challenges to democracy.

Philea aims to deepen the philanthropic sector’s understanding and engagement with equality through intentional programming and strategic reflection.

We also pay attention to how equality interacts with Philea’s other 2 cross-cutting focus areas: climate and democracy. 

Our commitment

Philea is deeply committed to advancing equality by addressing pressing global challenges such as inequality, racism, and social exclusion through promoting innovative, responsible and collaborative approaches to philanthropy. Emphasising the importance of funding grassroots organisations and community foundations, Philea advocates for flexible, long-term support built on trust and willingness to embrace risk. Central to its approach is the belief that power and equality must be carefully balanced, with a strong focus on localisation and the empowerment of those working on the ground to transform systems and promote social justice.

As a membership-driven organisation, our mission is to ignite transformative conversations, provide inspiration, and offer the tools, insights and connections that empower our members to make intentional changes in the areas they care about. These changes, both internally within their own spheres and externally in the broader society, will contribute to addressing systemic inequalities and building a more equitable world. Our impact is indirect, multiplying through the actions of our members.

Philea’s Equality Sounding Board

To guide its work, in 2025 Philea established a members’ sounding board, composed of diverse representatives from thematic networks, philanthropic infrastructure organisations, and experts in equality. This group acts as an advisory body to the Philea executive team, providing expertise, feedback, and strategic advice to shape Philea’s equality initiatives. They also serve as ambassadors within the membership, fostering broader engagement and championing philanthropy for equality throughout the sector. The sounding board meets regularly, contributing to key activities such as reviewing frameworks, narratives, and flagship events, and helping plan sustainable efforts beyond 2025.

The sounding board recommended Philea a multi-faceted approach to advancing equality:

• Developing a conceptual framework and narrative on equality to enable shared understanding and meaningful discussions within the philanthropic community, highlighting its relationship with power and other cross-cutting themes.
• Creating a repository mapping members’ tools, principles, and approaches to equality work, followed by defining high-level philanthropic principles that respect sector diversity and guide future efforts.
• Coordinating and connecting existing thematic networks focused on different dimensions of inequality (such as gender, disability, children and youth, diversity and migration) to break down silos and foster strategic collaboration.
• Mainstreaming an equality lens across Philea’s flagship events and initiatives during 2025 and beyond, ensuring equality perspectives are embedded in the organisation’s work, supported by an internal equality collaboration circle.

The Equality Framework

Philea’s Equality Framework provides a broad and flexible lens on the relationship between philanthropy and equality. It invites philanthropic organisations at different stages of this journey to explore four key areas of practice: internal practices, relational approaches, redistribution of capital, and systems thinking.

Get inspired

Check out these perspectives from across the philanthropy sector.

• It Is Not the Time to Freeze – Françoise Moudouthe
• Rethinking Power, Progress, and Pragmatism – Larry Kramer
• Justice Is Not Cheap – Marija Jakovljević
• What Real Leadership Looks Like – Matthias Scheffelmeier

Get involved

Explore and engage with Philea’s related networks:

• Children and Youth Network
• Disability Thematic Network
• Diversity, Migration and Integration Thematic Network
• Gender Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Network
• PEXprojects: Gender Equity and Justice & Racial Equity

Share your experience:

We are looking for real-world examples of how foundations are putting the Philanthropy and Equality Framework into action. Share a concrete initiative, project, or change aligned with one of the four categories listed in the aforementioned framework: Equality-centred internal foundation practices; Redistribution of capital; Relational approaches; and Applying systems lenses