Reconciling the What with the How: Dialogue Series with Philanthropic Leaders – Part 1
The dialogue series „Reconciling the What with the How: Self-Reflective Conversations with Philanthropic Leaders“ is part of the Future-Proof Funding Initiative launched by SwissFoundations at the beginning of the year. The series was initiated by Katherine Milligan, elea fellow at IMD and senior lecturer at the Graduate Institute, and Suba Umathevan, CEO of Drosos Foundation. It is an invitation to a deeper dialogue that gets us closer to the heart of what really matters in philanthropy and what needs to shift.
In the inaugural interview, Katherine Milligan sits down with Suba Umathevan, kicking off the series with a candid conversation to challenge the status quo. Future interviews in the series will foster a space where vulnerability, learning, and genuine impact take center stage.
Katherine Milligan: No one wants to participate in the same tired conversation about what philanthropy should do differently, especially when so much is going unsaid. That’s why I’m looking forward to this interview – you are willing to „speak the unspoken“ and challenge our sector’s ways of working. We need more courageous philanthropy leaders who are willing to do that, and my hope is that the dialogue series sparks a deeper exploration about what really matters: How are we showing up as leaders in philanthropy? How well are we walking our talk?
In that spirit, let me start by saying what we all know but rarely voice out loud: there is a massive dissonance in the social sector between what we espouse and how we work. Many readers will resonate with this, because we all experience that disconnect between in different ways depending on where we sit within the broader ecosystem of actors working for social change.
As the CEO of a respected foundation, can you start by telling us how you experience the disconnect between the ‚what‘ and the ‚how‘?
Suba Umathevan: I spent many years working in international NGOs and implementing organizations that receive grant funding, so that informs my perspective. When you’re short on resources, you can’t waste time on unnecessary matters. When I took on the CEO role at Drosos Foundation, I experienced time in a different way. On the one hand, you have resources to invest, so you need to research and dig deeper into understanding what others are already funding, identify gaps, and define thematic priorities. On the other hand, there’s a risk of getting stuck in endless strategic reviews, where theoretical frameworks take precedence over the realities on the ground.
Entering the world of philanthropy from NGOs, I was also struck by two key observations. One, where’s the sense of efficiency? We must ask ourselves tough questions about resource allocation and avoid redundancy.
Two, where’s the humility? Many foundations have an attitude of „we know best.“ Many years ago, in a previous role, I worked on a project involving several Kenyan organizations and a European foundation. The foundation representative literally pretended to know Kenya better than the Kenyan leaders in the room! That might sound extreme, but it’s more common in philanthropy than you’d think.
Now that I am on the other side of the equation, I am very conscious not to repeat that dynamic.
If we expect the local organizations and non-profits we are funding to be efficient, to be humble, and to be learning organisations, we should be consistent and walk our own talk.
KM: You raise an essential point that is rarely spoken out loud and not discussed nearly enough: foundation teams need to reflect on how well they embody the same principles they expect from their grantees and implementing partners. Share more about how you’re creating coherence between the „what“ and the „how“ at Drosos. How do you connect these principles to your way of working as a foundation?
SU: Let me give an example. Previously, our internal culture centred on being the experts. We felt we had to have all the answers, When our team members pitched their projects internally, there wasn’t much space to ask critical questions or give feedback, as everyone worried about maintaining that expert image.
If you extrapolate that out to the culture of a foundation, it can come across as a sense of arrogance. It’s somehow like we think that as a foundation we are supposed to have all the answers. We realised we needed to do some work on ourselves: how to give and receive feedback, how to hold generative conversations, how to integrate multiple perspectives into a project design.
Now we’ve created an internal culture of dialogue combined with processes to exchange learnings on a regular basis. New projects go through iterative feedback cycles to solicit input in multiple stages. Team members now actively seek input from colleagues. They approach the pitch sessions with much more vulnerability. They’ll say, „We had a conversation with our local partner, and we’re not really sure which angle to take on X. What do others think?“
This has shifted our mindset. We’re not judging internally or externally; we’re just trying to do our collective best in the process. Everyone feels like they’re in a learning space and everyone feels encouraged to ask critical questions and learn together.
That learning mentality is equally important when our program managers are out talking to partners, because they are representing us as a foundation. So for example, if the milestones are not hit by the deadline specified in the grant proposal, we ask questions, refrain from judgement, and engage in dialogue to make adjustments as necessary. Our relationships with our local partners have deepened as a result.
KM: The culture of learning you bring up is so critical. And I guess this is obvious, but a commitment to learning also requires a willingness to acknowledge what you don’t know and don’t understand. That’s often quite hard for leaders to do.
SU: If I think about the work we did changing our internal culture, that starts with me, right? I have to model a learning mindset. I don’t know everything, and I have to normalise that for our team.
It’s a mindset shift and a willingness to be open, to be honest about uncertainty, to be ok saying, ‘I don’t know the answer.’
This culture of dialogue extends to the board level as well. If I cannot be honest and open and vulnerable with my board, that’s where the problem starts. We are not presenting anything as perfect. We’re presenting proposals as, „Here is the current scenario and these are the risks. Are we willing to invest given those risks?“ It completely shifts the conversation.
KM: There’s a lot of talk now about collaborative philanthropy, which is a positive trend and should be encouraged. In my experience, though, the talk is pretty divorced from the reality. Reconciling a desire for collaborative approaches with an instinct to brand them and maintain decision-making control isn’t easy, and that’s where a lot of foundations stumble. From what you’ve seen, how well does philanthropy walk its talk on collaboration?
SU: I see a lot of impatience and frustration in our sector with this. You’re right that often what goes under the guise of „collaborative philanthropy“ looks like a foundation launching its own initiative with its program managers or grant officers in the lead deciding who else is invited in.
Even when we genuinely want the collaboration to be equal, the reality is the power dynamic is there. The people with the financial resources have more say in the decision-making. We need to commit to breaking down those barriers, starting at the board level. Those are vigorous discussions and mindsets are slowly changing.
KM: Yes, many other foundation executives have echoed these same struggles. So if this conventional, branded approach to collaboration is simply not going to get us from here to there, what will? What do we need to do differently?
SU: Several things need to shift. Start by learning together before you design the project. Engage in dialogue with other foundations and trusted stakeholders. Sketch out the challenge together and ask them, „What are we not seeing?“
Together with another foundation, for example, we’re going on a scouting trip before we develop any preconceived ideas about what we should do together. We are bringing our country teams together for dialogue and then we’re going to meet each other’s program partners and figure out if we can scope something together.
It requires a willingness to be challenged and find common ground, but I am excited to be part of conversations like these in countries where we have long-term commitments. True, you can only do this if you can allocate sufficient time. In some contexts, the urgency is so great we don’t have that.
But as a sector, it would be transformative if we all moved in that direction and committed more of our philanthropic resources to learning and co-creating together.
KM: What I’m taking away as your key messages for philanthropy leaders is to deepen trusted relationships, create spaces for shared experiences and generative dialogue, and center your internal culture around a commitment to learning. What words of encouragement would you offer to other philanthropy leaders who are also trying to create more coherence between the „what“ and the „how“?
SU: I don’t want to come across as saying, „You should be doing this.“ But my message to philanthropy is: we have to start with us. And by us, I also mean me.
I try to practice genuine leadership and embody these principles, but it’s not the easy road. Staying true to my values and what I stand for is what keeps me going.
We need to be compassionate with ourselves but we also need to hold ourselves to account, because we have the privilege of being able to work with our peers and our partners to bring about change.
Now that I am in this very privileged space of philanthropy, I constantly ask myself, „What can I do with this privilege?“ We must use our privilege to amplify the voices of people we work with.
Tags