Elizabeth J. Dale, Ph.D.
Frey Foundation Chair for Family Philanthropy
Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy
Grand Valley State University

This chapter, featured in Participatory Grantmaking in Philanthropy: How Democratizing Decision-Making Shifts Power to Communities, discusses how Pride Foundation, a public foundation serving the LGBTQ+ community, rethought its Community Grants Program as part of a broader institutional commitment to racial equity. It details what the transition away from a traditional, application-based grantmaking model looked like in real time during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and raises important questions for other foundations to answer when aligning their grantmaking with an equity lens. One of those questions is: Under what circumstances should established foundations explore and adopt alternative approaches to grantmaking such as participatory grantmaking and trust-based philanthropy? This chapter discusses how Pride Foundation ultimately adopted a trust-based philanthropy approach, which centers mutually accountable relationships between funders and grantees and shifts power away from funders to consider grantees’ needs.

Elizabeth J. Dale, Ph.D., joined the Johnson Center in September 2024 as the second holder of the Frey Foundation Chair for Family Philanthropy, the world’s first endowed chair for family philanthropy. She previously held a faculty position and directed the Nonprofit Leadership Program at Seattle University and was the Visiting Eileen Lamb O’Gara Fellow in Women’s Philanthropy at Indiana University.

Dr. Dale has authored or co-authored more than 20 publications and reports for both scholarly and practitioner audiences, which have been published in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Journal of Philanthropy and Marketing, Voluntary Sector Review, The Foundation Review, Philanthropy and Education, and several prominent edited volumes. Her scholarship has focused on social justice philanthropy, women’s giving and giving to women’s and girls’ causes, LGBTQ+ philanthropy, and couples’ charitable giving, as well as gender and the fundraising profession. Ultimately, Dr. Dale seeks to understand the power and potential of philanthropy, the role of identity in giving, and the role of philanthropy in contributing to a more just, equitable, and inclusive society.