2025 was a year of inflection for participatory governance, and for the role of philanthropy within it. Across regions, pressures on democratic and civic space increased in many parts of the world, public resources for civil society declined, and political pressure on funders intensified. At the same time, fiscal policy, climate finance, and development models moved closer to the center of global debate, creating both new risks and new openings for accountability, equity, and inclusion.
In this context, the Trust, Accountability, and Inclusion Collaborative (TAI) played a critical role as connective infrastructure: helping funders make sense of a fast-moving landscape, and coordinating responses where possible. In 2025, TAI members, with secretariat support, leaned into learning, experimentation, and strategic alignment, recognizing that business as usual is no longer sufficient.
What TAI contributed as a platform in 2025
Convening for coordination and learning:
TAI organized and supported 51 convenings, bringing together funders, practitioners, researchers, and intermediaries to share analysis, surface emerging risks, and explore coordinated responses, particularly on democratic and civic space, fiscal accountability, gender just economy, and resourcing civil society.
Building bridges across silos:
Through initiatives such as the 3D Dialogues, the Fiscal Ecosystems work, the Gender Just Economy Collaborative, and the Funder Roundtable on the Future of Development, TAI connected funders working on democracy, economic justice, climate, and development, identifying relevant touchpoints across domains.
In 2025, TAI focused on enabling funders to stay engaged, informed, and connected at a moment when fragmentation and risk aversion threatened collective action. Key contributions included:
Supporting informed funding decisions:
TAI provided targeted advice to funders and philanthropic advisors, including high-net-worth individuals, contributing directly to new grants in areas such as tax justice, fiscal accountability, and civil society infrastructure.
Strengthening shared learning infrastructure:
TAI hosted its fifth Annual Learning Days in Berlin and introduced the learning questions of a new systems-based Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) framework. This reinforced TAI’s role as a space for collective sense-making and cross-fertilization of ideas.
Influencing the field:
In 2025, TAI strengthened its field-wide influence through targeted advocacy, thought leadership, and open convenings, generating 11 media outputs and 7 products, including a podcast and deep analysis, as well as around 12 external media placements. Across all activities, TAI engaged almost two thousand participants, with participation from non-members and practitioners more than doubling compared to 2024.
Read the Executive Snapshot here.
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