FROM THE PRESIDENT AND CEO
MARCH 2026
Can you see a different future, one where the economy works inclusively for all of us? Are today’s realities distracting, or are they clarifying what needs to change and the possible roles you can take? Is your institution focused on short-term responses, or are you also investing in the work that will redefine the next few decades?
There are many reasons to focus on the immediate: a war currently creating economic uncertainty, an affordability crisis creating increased financial precarity for growing numbers of households, spiking unemployment especially among women of color, anxiety about how AI will reduce or eliminate quality jobs that have been the focus of years of public and private sector investment and many white collar jobs, a reversal of years of civil rights progress, economically destructive anti-immigrant actions, and a wide array of economic policies that are making it harder for low and moderate income households whose wages and income are insufficient to ensure stability or mobility.
These circumstances make it tempting to be discouraged, to avoid the news, to hope that this will pass as you focus on daily tasks and your own well-being. Yet, we know that is not how it works. Waiting for the storm to pass will miss opportunity windows. Waiting also will prevent the hard work of planning, testing, and doing the things that can chart a different, inclusive prosperity that is still possible.
This is not a new tension, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., named it plainly:
“God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth, while others live in abject deadening poverty.Dr. Martin Lurher King, Jr. “Strength to Love” 1963
Philanthropy is grounded in that same moral clarity, and AFN’s work reflects in the recognition that closing this gap requires more than charity. It requires strategy to achieve systemic change. Long-term commitment and values-based goals reflecting changed outcomes are the critical ingredients needed to increase stability, security, and asset building for all. At AFN, we recognize that those in government and in non-profits delivering services will likely be part of the change needed, but their focus of necessity is on the immediate. For profit entities similarly have the obligation to focus on the present circumstances to ensure continued profitability. In their own way, each is striving to deliver on their purpose.
Only philanthropy has both the structural freedom and the moral obligation to stay focused on the commitment to improving the systemic change that produces equitable outcomes. That role can be attempted by funders with hubris, unfounded assumptions, and power imbalances that results in early abandonment and may widen economic wealth inequities. But when equity focused philanthropy intentionally plans with attention to the facts about the current economic levers, the root causes that need to be uprooted, the priorities being named by community voices, and a commitment to test, learn, and act with humility, perseverance, and meaningful investments supporting what works, then inclusive prosperity emerges and can be built upon.
AFN exists to work with funders making the commitment to effecting change that is value-based and lasting. Despite the challenges being presented on a daily basis now and probably for the next few years, this is also a time of possibility.
Philanthropy can be opportunistic as the herald of change by:
- Investing in a new generation of wealth and asset holders through child accounts (directly in 530a and CSAs and advocating to state governments to create Baby Bonds) to create near universal opportunity targeting families who reside in communities with incomes at or below targets such as median incomes
- Working with advocates and states ready to fully rethink the array of income supports, reducing economic anxiety for households navigating a broken and outdated safety net and low wage income supports – A starting point for funders: AFN Guaranteed Income Funder Q&A
- Increasing pathways to home ownership by expanding housing options and financing that include a far broader mix of workers and households, and that those with assets have available, affordable pathways to protect their homes.
- Ensuring there are funded agents to invest in small business, worker upskilling, and youth training into resilient workforce opportunities
At AFN, we see our network acting and raising up these issues. Our role is to challenge the inequitable status quo by identifying the next possible paths, helping funders test and share their learnings, and elevating ideas and results to inform practice, policy and design change. The work will likely be conducted in the laboratory of our cities and states. It will require a commitment to learn, adjust, and try again whenever the results are less than hoped for. If Philanthropy can deliver on being the source of hope and engine of innovation for an equitable future, we will need to keep improving to align efforts and be resilient over the long term.
In our network – among our members and in our regional chapters, we believe the truth is: if we do not step up to this challenge consistently as the herald of change over the next decades, who will?
