The shared challenges of philanthropy and charity

The Association of Charitable Foundations (ACF) Conference 2025, ‘Future-ready Foundations’, provided a clear blueprint for the philanthropy and charity sectors. The flagship Conference gathered trustees, employees, and foundation leaders to discuss the most pressing challenges, pushing us all to stay resilient in uncertain times and remain relevant to our communities.  

The ACF Conference arrived at a time of complexity, at a moment in which new crises seem perpetually on the horizon. The workshops and sessions explored three key themes, all shaping the future of foundation work: 

• Navigating digital: Sessions tackled artificial intelligence (AI) in grant-making, AI readiness, understanding data relating to place, financial tech, and much more

• Adapting to changing populations: The sessions looked at ageing communities, shifting public needs, and meeting new demands in changing geopolitical spaces

• Shifting power: Sessions covered participatory grant-making, inclusive boards, work-ready futures, funding and racial equity, and so much more 

The sessions Charity Digital saw proved intelligent, edifying, and thought-provoking. But below we want to look at some key takeaways from the keynote speech, delivered from Sir Geoff Mulgan, Professor at University College London’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Policy team. The opening keynote set the tone for the day and provided an insightful overview of some of the challenges facing philanthropy and the charity sector. 

The need for long-term vision 

Sir Geoff talked about the difficulties of grant-funding. “It’s not difficult to give away money,” Sir Geoff claimed. “It is difficult to give away money well.” The challenge for a lot of funds, as with a lot of charities, seems to be the failure of a long-term vision. We want to create new futures, secured by systemic changes, but we often don’t have the pathways in place to secure that vision. 

Charities often suffer from short-termism. We are constantly trying to meet the needs of our service users, often with little money in our pockets, often without much internal support, so the long-term visions are seldom a priority. Charities seem to permanently firefight. They are not given the space to look further forward.  

That’s true of how we use digital, too, a point that we heard reiterated several times at the ACF Conference. Charities and foundations often fail to maximise the value of digital and AI because they do not have the space to learn, the time to cautiously experiment, or the ability to teach others in their teams.

To change the future, to think long-term, largely depends on developing new mindsets and providing people with more space and more time.  

Challenges set to define the future 

Sir Geoff looked to the future and highlighted some of the challenges the philanthropy and charity sectors face, many of which were addressed throughout the day. It’s useful, for our readers, to recite these larger issues, as these are areas that charities will face, even if vicariously. 

• Shared truth: Functioning societies demand shared truth, Sir Geoff argued. The problem at present, one with which charities frequently contend, is the spread of eco-systems of misinformation. We are seeing untruths and half-truths and every in-between from social media platforms, misleading information from prominent AI systems, not to mention the shortcomings of old media and governments around the world 

• Artificial intelligence: The world needs to prepare for the world shaped by AI. One issue is that governments are ill-prepared, a point often echoed across Silicon Valley. Governments cannot keep up with the tech. Legislation takes years to pass and, by the time it is enacted, many parts seem outdated. We need governance that meets the demand of the moment and charities and foundations can play a significant role

• Birth rates: Falling fertility and increasing life expectancy drives an intergeneration unbalance. The shift creates and aging population, a shrinking working-age cohort. Charities and foundations should address root causes, but charities, particularly charities that deal in care, may need additional support to meet the effects 
• Cognitive decline: IQ is declining. School scores are declining. Literacy and numeracy rates are declining, too. We do not understand the impact of that just yet, but the impact may prove huge. And the decline may accelerate, as emerging and existing tech threatens to encourage habits that reduce recall, promote shallow thinking, lower our tolerance for ambiguity, limit creativity, and so on 

These are the challenges we are facing. They were specified in the ACF Conference keynote and addressed collectively with workshops on, among other things, strengthening democracy, social sector scaffolding, using data to understand inequality, and preparing for future trends.

Our job, as charities, is to remain vigilant to the issues our societies face and do our best to work with each other, with other charities, and with service users to promote the best version of the future.

Long-term thinking is a necessity, even amid short-term challenges.