“Your work is not a priority for us.”
This is one of the most common responses I hear from philanthropic foundations. Silence is more common still.
I understand why a foundation might decline to fund a particular organization or project. What concerns me is a broader pattern: philanthropy consistently underinvests in the information ecosystem that many of its priority outcomes quietly depend on. This is not a universal pattern. Some foundations have made thoughtful and sustained investments in journalism, transparency, and public-interest information.
I recently explored this argument in Nonprofit Quarterly. For those responsible for allocating capital, here’s the practical takeaway: information is not a communications line item. It is enabling infrastructure.
When that infrastructure weakens, risk increases across an entire portfolio.
Programs in climate, biodiversity, public health, and governance often assume that regulation will be enforced, violations will be noticed, and evidence will circulate to the actors who need it. Those assumptions only hold when credible, usable information is present and accessible.
A few considerations that may be useful at the program and board level:
- Treat information as upstream risk mitigation. Monitoring, documentation, and verification reduce the likelihood that funded interventions operate in the dark.
- Fund capacities, not messages. Independence matters. Support skills, safety, data access, translation, and distribution rather than prescribed conclusions.
- Expect indirect impact. The effects of information work are cumulative and non-linear. Attribution will be imperfect, but leverage can be substantial.
- Diversify across the ecosystem. No single outlet or platform carries the burden alone. Resilience comes from many actors working in parallel.
- Allow flexibility. Rigid theories of change can undermine credibility. Trust-based support enables practitioners to follow evidence as it emerges.
This is especially important in regions where civic space is narrowing. When local journalists, researchers, and monitors are constrained or silenced, corruption deepens and environmental harm becomes harder to contest. Where information flows persist—even through modest, decentralized efforts—the conditions for accountability are more likely to endure.
None of this implies that information alone delivers outcomes. It does not enforce laws or restore ecosystems. What it does is clarify conditions, surface responsibility, and expand the range of informed choices available to others.
From a fiduciary perspective, supporting the information ecosystem is not speculative. It strengthens the likelihood that other investments function as intended.
In a crowded philanthropic landscape, that may be one of the most practical forms of leverage available.
