In just a few years, the world has witnessed rapidly accelerating changes. As the dust of the pandemic was still settling, in 2022 a war broke out on the continent of Europe. While not entirely new, polarisation has since deepened, geopolitical allegiances have been questioned, and democracy – along with civic space – has come under increasing pressure.
In this context, amid a rapidly changing funding landscape marked by the dismantling of USAID in 2025 and significant cuts by European governments, philanthropy is called upon to come to the fore while being under increasing pressure itself. With this, Philea too must gear up to be stronger, more agile and more strategic. Our vision – for philanthropy to use its full potential to co-shape and support a pluralistic, just and resilient society that centres people and planet – is clearly more relevant than ever.
Broad strategic aims for 2026
Streamlining our activities around the most relevant conversations
In 2026 we will make an effort to synergise the work – where possible – around a number of conversation topics that are expected to be on the sector’s mind. While every network, community and initiative will continue to work around diverse issues, our members may expect us to connect the dots between the various groups when discussing:
- Democratic Decline & Philanthropy’s Role
- Governance & Leadership Under Pressure
- Climate & Environmental Challenges
- Equality & Systemic Power Shifts
- Collaboration as a Necessity
- Grantmaking & Internal Practices
- Digitalisation & AI in Philanthropy
While these 7 themes will never capture all the conversations that will emerge throughout the different groups, communities, networks and initiatives, one of the aims for 2026 will be to cluster them more intentionally and seek synergies where appropriate.
Capitalising more on knowledge and data – and making them more practical for our audience
We will focus on clustering conversations to capture knowledge efficiently and share learnings that help move from theory to practice. This includes more practice-oriented publications and user-friendly formats, building on 2025 steps such as case studies, how-to guides and interactive content.
Continuing to strengthen our convening power
Our ability to bring people and organisations together around topics that matter is most definitely our unique power as Philea. Our strength lies in our community, and in the spaces we hold for our members. In 2026, we aim to further develop these opportunities, and, where appropriate, also work towards stronger intra- and cross-constituency engagement.
In line with our Riga Commitments (see below), we will make sure to welcome a plurality of voices, even around contentious themes, with an emphasis on those who are part of the community of philanthropic organisations and their national infrastructure bodies. Intentional efforts will be made to target information for and streamline communications to our members.
Looking ahead and being responsive to the challenges of our times
In a context of democratic decline, funding cuts and pressure on the sector, Philea will stand strong to defend and promote an enabling environment for philanthropy. At the core of this effort remains our European Philanthropy Manifesto, and our understanding that philanthropy in itself is not only part of, but also an enabler for civil society at large.
In line with the Riga Commitments, Philea will also reflect on its positionality and role – helping philanthropic actors navigate complexity with humility, courage and strategic foresight.
The Riga Commitments: Four ambitions distilled from our mid-term strategic review
Our strategic priorities for 2026 are based on member feedback and a mid-term strategic review which was held in the spring of 2025. As we reached the midway point of our Strategic Framework 2023-2027, the Philea Board and Nomination and Governance Committee (NGC) organised a strategic retreat in Riga, Latvia. Based on this thorough assessment of our external context, membership engagement and internal set-up, the group developed clarifications and proposals for fine-tuning our orientation centred on four ambitions – the Riga Commitments – to guide us in 2026 and 2027, the final two years of our strategic framework:
- Philea chooses to be an organisation that brings together diverse opinions and views.
- Philea chooses to take a “broad-tent” approach. Our vision and values define the contours of our tent and direction of travel.
- We wish to strengthen our ability to focus, investing our limited resources toward the most strategic issues for the sector.
- We need to review our funding model to create a stronger, more agile, and more strategic organisation, responsive to the challenges of our times.
In June 2025, the General Assembly endorsed these ambitions and the Board’s proposals for achieving them, setting the path for the future in a vision paper, "Towards a stronger, more agile and more strategic backbone for the sector".