Revitalizing the Peace Ecosystem: A New Strategy for Peace Philanthropy

Adapted from the Peace and Security Funders Group (PSFG) 2025-2030 Strategy, co-created by PSFG staff members;¹ our dedicated “Core Working Crew” of members and grantee partners;² and over 100 individuals across the broader peace ecosystem who generously shared input in community-wide strategy calls.

Our world and our field are in a state of breakdown and transformation. Today’s compounding crises – authoritarianism, militarism, polarization, climate, unconstrained AI development – contribute to the erosion of peace and security worldwide. Even as major conflict looms, the ecosystem working to defend peace is stretched thin and operating on a shoestring budget. The peace funding community cannot fill the gaps left by slashed governmental funds and failing international institutions, but philanthropists can make a real difference³ revitalizing our sector to meet these mounting challenges.

The Peace and Security Funders Group (PSFG), a network connecting and supporting peace philanthropy, recognizes our dual responsibilities in this moment: to attend to those impacted by outdated and collapsing systems while simultaneously seeding the conditions for new systems to take root. Without attention to the relational, cultural, and inner dimensions of change, the peace and security field risks repeating old patterns. PSFG supports the health of our ecosystem from our unique vantage point across and within the landscape of peace and security – resourcing funders with the relationships, skills, and practices to become better caretakers of peace in a fractured world.

About PSFG

PSFG was founded in 2000 by several large foundations to connect and convene peace and security funders for stronger collaboration. 25 years later, our purpose remains the same, but we now work with and through the nearly 60 funders in our membership⁴ to resource a wide range of critical sectors, including peacebuilding, AI and nuclear security, climate security, democracy, building social cohesion and reducing polarization, crisis preparedness, and more.

Our work beyond 2025 will be in service of our vision for the future:

The Peace and Security Funders Group (PSFG) strives to usher in a world with freedom, justice, and peace. We work collectively toward a future where differences generate imagination and innovation, not violent conflict; where dialogue, collaboration, and understanding supplant militarized oppression; and where robust civic space supports the flourishing of people and planet.

Our mission is to connect and support the global community of funders advancing peace and security efforts in order to build a more peaceful, just, and equitable world. PSFG’s work is based on our three core values of community, courage, and equity.

Our Approach

Over the past decades, PSFG has built a diverse, trusted coalition of funders ready to collaborate across different strategies, roles, institution types, geographies, and issue areas; become greater than the sum of our parts; and contribute to a more peaceful world. PSFG’s sometimes invisible, but foundational work of deep relationship building and network weaving has been critical to maintaining community and solidarity through recent shockwaves to the peace sector. At the heart of our work is our belief that transformation is both relational and systemic – a philosophy underpinning our decades of learning and convening, and newly articulated in our strategy for 2025-2030.

Just as the health of a forest requires biodiversity of plants, animals, and fungi — such as the connective mycelium of the forest floor — the richness of our ecosystem likewise comes from the intersections and inputs of those collaborating across functions, expertise, and ideologies toward peace. Working at the connective (or “interstitial”⁵) level, PSFG is able to make sense of these inputs and serve as a relational catalyst and ecosystem steward for the peace and security funding field. PSFG’s core strength lies in our ability to nurture conditions that support trust-based relationships, facilitate productive dialogue across differences, enable strategic action, surface emerging needs, and connect diverse actors, ideas, and sectors. This complex moment in history requires us to work both individually and collectively to shift deeply entrenched systems that fuel conflict and keep us disconnected from one another – from militarism to authoritarianism to racism and other intertwined systems of oppression. PSFG’s connective work builds the infrastructure and conditions for others to thrive and strengthens the collective capacity to resource peace and security in a fractured world.

Strategic Shift

Over the past 25 years, PSFG has been successful in cultivating relationships and trust with our members, which is the foundational layer in a healthy system. Our next chapter is about becoming a distributed, skilled-up network of funders – with PSFG as gardener of relationships, pollinator of new ideas, and steward of the ecosystem’s health.

In the next five years, PSFG will continue deepening the trust and connections in the peace and security field and, in addition, evolve into something more resilient and expansive. Our new approach will leverage PSFG’s success as a trusted hub of relationships by building our members’ capacity as relational leaders in their own right: a network of funders who, through their collaborative approaches, experiments, and care, strengthen and connect the ecosystem of the field. PSFG will actively support the success of peace philanthropy by working in new ways and with new collaborators to harness innovation, encourage risk-taking and experimentation, and build a peace infrastructure primed for strategic action and better funding outcomes.

PSFG’s Roles

To meet this moment, PSFG is embracing five interconnected roles rooted in systems and network theory, and reflecting the evolution of our work. We understand that to change a system, we need to change the relationships within the system, including the relationship to oneself. Embodying these five roles includes continually re-examining our assumptions and tending to our own growth, sharpening our collective conflict intelligence, and ensuring equity is embedded into all that we do.

These roles also describe how we support the broader peace and security ecosystem: building trust, connecting people and ideas, facilitating collaborative action, and helping resources flow where they’re most needed. The five roles leverage our unique strengths, increase the impact of our network’s efforts, and enable us to adapt and respond with creativity, collaboration, and innovation over the next five years.

1. Relational Gardener

We build and nurture trusted relationships.

PSFG’s work in this role includes creating the infrastructure and pathways for expanded partnerships, and introducing our members to the skills and tools to cultivate trust and catalyze collaboration. By deepening our relationships and fostering a culture of belonging and care, we believe we can continue to broaden the coalition working toward a peaceful, just, and equitable world.

Our work in this role will support the success of peace philanthropy by:

• Networking funders to each other, and to a wider pool of trusted, cross-sector contacts and other strategic players. Even as we support our members to do more peer-to-peer organizing, PSFG will provide the infrastructure for that networking.
• Providing skills-building opportunities for members that they don’t get in their day jobs (e.g., coaching, facilitation, conflict intelligence, coalition building).
• Holding collaborations of busy people together, and supporting them if they start to flounder.
• Fostering support networks of specific configurations, so that funders can find kinship with others who hold similar roles.

2. System Activator

We inform and connect key players to spark collaboration for change.

In playing this role, the PSFG staff will help our members understand windows of opportunity and risk. At critical moments, we will introduce and connect the right people to courageously organize, lead, advocate, and collaborate for individual, organizational, and/or ecosystem-level transformation.

Our work in this role will support the success of peace philanthropy by:

• Showing the system to itself. When funders want to take action but aren’t at the right vantage point to know what that action could be – or with whom – PSFG will help stakeholders see the system from our bird’s-eye view, layer this with our deep expertise, and provide insights that make their work better.
• Facilitating professional, high-quality convenings and collaborative action. PSFG members will benefit from our expertise in agenda and event design, facilitation, and engagement strategy.
• Coordinating power mapping of the funder community – and their areas of potential alignment/misalignment – and/or subsets of the sector when it would be strategic.

3. Resource Steward

We embrace new and catalytic ways to resource the peace ecosystem.

Through this role, PSFG will help our members and other stakeholders understand evolutions and innovations in peace and security funding; support the health and well-being of the ecosystem; and explore how we might unlock new resources for our areas of work. PSFG will help members think strategically and creatively about what it means to resource the field to withstand the moment we’re in and build the future we want.

Our work in this role will support the success of peace philanthropy by:

• Crafting strategies to unlock new capital to fund peace, outside of traditional philanthropy.
• Thinking creatively about resourcing the field in holistic ways, beyond just money (e.g., infrastructure and wellbeing support).
• Participating in aligned coalitions in order to glean operational knowledge about infrastructure, banking, mutual aid, and more, in order to strengthen field resilience and generate creative ideas for attracting new monies.
• Exploring alternative funding pathways through imagination, creativity, and mutual support.

4. Cross-Pollinator

We bring people and ideas together across silos.

The PSFG staff are experts in their own right across a wide variety of “peace and security” issues and in philanthropy. As such, we will act as a “cross-pollinator,” connecting potential collaborators and promising approaches across the usual boundaries of geography, ideology, function, power, and more. Through PSFG, key stakeholders can better understand their comparative advantages and limitations, and find allies who can support their work in an ecosystem approach. PSFG will also actively work to break down silos and foster interdisciplinary learning and action, with sensitivity to power dynamics in the sector.

Our work in this role will support the success of peace philanthropy by:

• Convening spaces where multiple sectors and functions meet, such as: philanthropy, policymaking, research, activism, investment, and practitioners.
• Cheerleading peace and security funding far and wide, in spaces our members may never enter themselves.
• Deepening PSFG’s relationships and collaboration with adjacent funder affinity groups (e.g., Human Rights Funders Network, Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement, Transparency and Accountability Initiative) and initiatives (e.g., humanitarian aid, human rights, wellbeing/trauma approaches, climate, democracy).

5. Coherence Facilitator

We support our field’s alignment and growth through healthy tension.

In this critical role, PSFG will skillfully tend to existing and emerging differences and conflicts in our field, translating tensions into insights for growth. In the coming years, both complexity and urgency to take action will only increase, and demands on funders will be greater than ever. PSFG will actively work across lines of difference (within the membership and externally) to continually evolve and engage in deep relationship-building towards shared understanding.

Our work in this role will support the success of peace philanthropy by:

• Cutting through the noise and chaos, to provide PSFG members with action-oriented advice, so they can make wise, informed, and strategic decisions about where their support can make a difference.
• Continuing to provide “cover” for members to learn about and implement best practices, such as equitable grantmaking principles.
• Providing opportunities for PSFG members to learn and practice the skills of conflict intelligence, equity and inclusion, psychological safety, and more, so that our differences can make us stronger, rather than fracturing our movements.

Theoretical Framework

In designing our next chapter, we partnered with experts and drew on respected models from organizational change, equity, and network leadership to understand what truly drives transformation in complex fields like peace and security. PSFG’s strategy is firmly rooted in research and proven frameworks for systems change. To guide the field through disruption, we used the Two-Loop Model⁶ from the Berkana Institute, which helps organizations navigate paradigm shifts. Alongside this, tools like Theory U,⁷ Cynefin Framework,⁸ Asset Framing,⁹ Appreciative Inquiry,¹⁰ Punctuated Equilibrium,¹¹ and the Interpersonal Gap¹² bring decades of scholarship and practice to our work.

This evidence-based approach helps us look beyond surface events to the deeper mindsets, structures, and relationships that either limit or unlock change. By applying practices such as deep listening, storytelling, and mirroring, we create conditions for trust, collaboration, and innovation; we move from short-term fixes to long-term systemic shifts.

Our approach to equity is also anchored in rigorous models. We adapted the Deep Equity and Systems Change framework¹³ – covering self, belonging, emergence, power, and ecosystem – to embed equity into every action and relationship. Together, these frameworks give PSFG a research-backed, future-focused roadmap for strengthening the field of peace and security funding.

Conclusion

While the peace sector has long raised warning signs for the health of civil society, few were prepared for the seismic impacts to the field we see today. From the abrupt end to USAID funding for global peace and development, to international institutions’ shortcomings in addressing human suffering, and to new threats to funders’ ability to conduct grantmaking – not even philanthropy has been insulated from impact. In five years, the global peace and conflict situation will develop further in ways we cannot now predict.

At PSFG, we try to model our human-centered, positive vision of what philanthropy should be. Peace funders must stand in solidarity with our partners who bear the brunt of global turmoil, and embrace our role to play as part of the peace ecosystem. While we can’t prepare for every scenario, we can build the relationships and skills vital to the continued resourcing of peace.

PSFG is now beginning to implement our new strategy through a multi-year series of pilots and experiments that will take stock of our collective power as a network, identify creative ways to employ all of our assets for peace, help our funder members level up their conflict intelligence skills, and catalyze action and connection across the peace and security landscape. By strengthening our muscles of collaboration, trust, and shared sensemaking across diverging viewpoints, we can open new pathways and create a more effective, equitable, and distributed sector to meet today’s needs and tomorrow’s challenges.

Additional Resources

• “The Discernment Framework,” Suleiman A., Substack (2025)
• “Otto Scharmer on the Four Levels of Listening,” 8:25 minutes, YouTube (2015)
• “Elements of the Equitable Evaluation Framework – Principles,” Equitable Evaluation Initiative (2023)
• “In Defense of Theory – Meso Matters,” Dominic Hofstetter, Medium (2021)
• “Four Network Principles for Collaboration Success,” Jane Wei and Nora Silver, The Foundation Review (2013)
• “The Interstitium,” 57:58 minutes, Radiolab (2023)
• “Invisible Landscapes,” Jennifer Brandel, Orion Magazine (2023)
• “The Most Impactful Leaders You Have Never Heard Of,” Jane Wei-Skillern, David Ehrlichman, and David Sawyer, Stanford Social Innovation Review (2015)
• “Five Steps to Building An Effective Impact Network,” David Ehrlichman, David Sawyer, and Jane Wei-Skillern, Stanford Social Innovation Review (2015)
• “Why Movements Need to Learn to Fly Like Bees and Thread Like Spiders,” John Paul Lederach, Waging Nonviolence (2025)
• “10 Key Roles for Systemic Change,” Adrian Robke (2025)
• “Systems Thinking and Paradigms: From Personal Shifts to Unleashing Systemic Shifts,” Christine Capra, Greater Than the Sum (2025)
• “Strategic Planning in 2025: Five Ways to Navigate Chaos with Clarity,” Amy Casso and Miriam Messinger, Network Weaver (2025)

Footnotes

1. Explanatory note: “PSFG’s full-time staff members are Alex Toma, Rachel LaForgia, Cath Thompson, and Istra Fuhrmann.” ↩

2. Explanatory note: “We are deeply grateful to our Core Working Crew — Angie Schlater (MacArthur Foundation), Conor Seyle (PAX sapiens), Harriet Knox Brown (Peace Direct), Ivana Kvesic (International Crisis Group), Joan Marshall-Missiye (Humanity United), Patrick Hiller (Jubitz Family Foundation), and Shamil Idriss (Search for Common Ground) — and to our strategy consultants Carol Xu and Agnes Meneses. This group met biweekly for seven months with PSFG staff to develop this strategy.” ↩

3. Inside Philanthropy, “Peace Is Worth It: So What Can Funders Do Right Now?,” Inside Philanthropy, https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/peace-is-worth-it-so-what-can-funders-do-right-now. ↩

4. Peace and Security Funders Group, “Our Members,” PSFG, https://www.peaceandsecurity.org/our-members. ↩

5. Jennifer Brandel, “Invisible Landscapes,” Orion Magazine, 2023, https://orionmagazine.org/article/interstitium-scientific-discovery-anatomy/. ↩

6. “Two-Loop Model,” Complex Systems Frameworks Collection, Simon Fraser University, https://www.sfu.ca/complex-systems-frameworks/frameworks/strategies/two-loop-model.html. ↩

7. Presencing Institute, “Theory U,” Presencing Institute, https://www.presencing.org/theoryu. ↩

8. “Cynefin Framework,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework. ↩

9. Communications Network, “Asset Framing: The Other Side of the Story,” Communications Network, https://www.comnetwork.org/blog/asset-framing-the-other-side-of-the-story. ↩

10. Center for Appreciative Inquiry, “What Is Appreciative Inquiry?,” Center for Appreciative Inquiry, https://centerforappreciativeinquiry.net/resources/what-is-appreciative-inquiry-ai/. ↩

11. “Punctuated Equilibrium Model (PEM) in OB,” GeeksforGeeks, https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/business-studies/punctuated-equilibrium-model-pem-in-ob/. ↩

12. “Interpersonal Gap,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpersonal_gap. ↩

13. Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, Movement Tapestries: Change Management and Deep Equity Primer (Washington, DC: GEO, 2023), https://www.geofunders.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/GEO_2023_MovementTapestries_ChangeManagementAndDeepEquityPrimer.pdf ↩