For several years, Chapin Hall has been working with a group of foundations that have an uncommon approach to their philanthropic mission. These foundations are applying many of the principles identified as key for foundations attempting to promote positive community change. We have dubbed their operating style embedded philanthropy because what distinguishes them from conventional philanthropies is an unusually intimate and enduring engagement with the communities in which they live and work. A long-term, place-based commitment is the first criterion for embedded philanthropy. A second criterion is a commitment to direct and ongoing community engagement and relationships with a range of community actors. Thirdly, embedded funders don’t think of these relationships as incidental or secondary aspects of their community work; they constitute the very means and method through which embedded funders do philanthropy. Finally, whether or not monetary grants are part of an embedded funder’s approach, their community engagement and change efforts consist of a good deal more than grant-making. Beyond these four defining features, embedded funders tend to share several other characteristics: an unusually flexible and adaptive approach to their work; a high tolerance for uncertainty; an emphasis on respect and reciprocity in their approach to community relationships; and a willingness to sacrifice a measure of the power and authority that foundations ordinarily possess. In a philanthropic climate of growing eagerness for new perspectives and departures, embedded philanthropy deserves greater attention from the wider philanthropic community. Its distinctive operating approach offers novel insights and leverage on the challenges and dilemmas faced by all philanthropic foundations.

Chapin Hall’s work on embedded philanthropy began in 2003, as an outgrowth of a long-standing research program on philanthropy and community change. Our focus thus far has been on documenting and delineating this form of philanthropic practice and on convening embedded funders in a series of meetings designed to help them learn from one another’s work. Our current perspective on embedded philanthropy is presented in a related Issue Brief from 2007. In an earlier publication, Moving Forward While Staying in Place (2004), we drew preliminary generalizations based on an initial cohort of embedded funders and profiled those eleven funders. A second publication, Embedded Funders and Community Change: Profiles (2006) provides descriptions of twelve foundations included in a second cohort of funders. Profiles of all 26 foundations involved in this project to date are also available below.