I came to Panorama Strategy this year because I believe deeply in the importance of organizations that help funders and nonprofits work together more effectively, especially in moments of change. I’ve spent my career working in the space between funders and implementers. I’ve been an implementing partner on USAID grantmaking projects, a philanthropic advisor to Fortune 500 companies, and a co-design partner to nonprofit leaders in the U.S. and around the world. Across those roles, I’ve gravitated toward the same kind of work: helping translate intent into action so philanthropic resources actually work for the communities they’re meant to serve.
That work has never felt more urgent. Over the past year, the philanthropic landscape has shifted rapidly. The dissolution of USAID created a significant vacuum in the foreign aid and global health space, disrupting long-standing funding flows and partnerships. At the same time, federal funding cutbacks have created uncertainty for many domestic-serving nonprofits, alongside growing concern about potential changes to the tax code. Together, these shifts have exposed how dependent many impact models are on systems that no longer feel stable.
When I was deciding where to go next, I knew I wanted to be at an organization that was actively navigating this uncertainty with both funders and nonprofits. Within my first 30 days at Panorama, it became clear that I had landed in exactly the right place. I saw a team responding in real time to change, mobilizing trusted networks, and helping partners think not just about individual grants, but about the systems that shape impact.
Looking back on those first 30 days, three moments stand out, each offering a concrete example of how Panorama shows up in this moment.
1. Using networks to move funding where it’s needed
This year saw the dismantling and pullback of long-standing systems in global development. As many others have written, while the dissolution of USAID had devastating impacts on communities, it also forced a reckoning with how the global aid system actually functions. In the absence of formal structures, informal networks—relationships built on trust, proximity, and shared experience—have become even more critical.
I saw this shift firsthand in my first week at Panorama. On my very first day, I was pulled into a project responding directly to this moment: helping to quickly source grantees for a significant funding opportunity. I reached out to former USAID colleagues and partners I’d worked with for years. The response was immediate and overwhelming. Within days, messages poured in from across the world—each offering thoughtful, trusted recommendations for organizations doing credible, community-rooted work. In under two weeks, the Panorama team surfaced more than 150 strong, proximate-led organizations as potential partners.
What struck me wasn’t just the volume or quality of the recommendations, but what they revealed about how the field is evolving. I heard from former large, U.S.-based implementers who were actively rethinking how they support long-time nonprofit partners. I also heard from locally based professionals—many of whom had built their careers within U.S. aid institutions—who are now leading local nonprofits or forming their own consultancies. Across these conversations was a shared desire to reduce the operational and compliance burdens that often come with donor funding, so organizations can focus on delivering impact rather than managing friction.
There was also a clear recognition that many legacy funding models—built around control, risk aversion, and distance from communities—are no longer fit for this moment.
Helping test a different approach in my first week made this tangible. We weren’t just moving quickly; we were designing a process grounded in trust, speed, and a clear-eyed understanding of nonprofit realities. Panorama wasn’t optimizing for one side of the equation. The work sat squarely at the intersection of funder intent and nonprofit reality—and was designed to work for both.
2. Helping funders and nonprofits build resilience together
Working at that intersection has been a throughline in my career — and one of the main reasons I joined Panorama. Funders and nonprofits are often working toward the same outcomes, but from very different starting points. When those differences go unacknowledged, even well-intentioned partnerships can strain or fail.
What stood out to me quickly at Panorama was that the organization doesn’t just work between funders and nonprofits — it works with both. Nonprofits aren’t treated as downstream recipients; in many cases, they are Panorama’s clients. That dual accountability gives the team a clear, grounded view into what each side has been navigating this year.
I saw this perspective reflected in Panorama’s recent blog, “From the Field: How Funders and Nonprofits Build Resilience in a Changing Philanthropic Landscape.” Rather than prescribing solutions, the piece surfaced how funders and nonprofits are navigating change in parallel—and offered concrete, practical guidance on how they might share responsibility and adapt together.
Because Panorama holds real relationships on both sides of the table, it can translate more honestly—naming constraints, surfacing tradeoffs, and helping partners align around what success actually looks like in practice. That kind of translation isn’t theoretical; it’s built from lived experience across projects, portfolios, and partnerships.
Seeing this work made me start to zoom out. When partnerships require this level of intentional design to work, it raises bigger questions about the systems that shape them – and whether those systems are still fit for purpose.
3. Strengthening the systems that shape impact
One of the clearest lessons from my first month is that Panorama is often invited into systems-level conversations precisely because of its grounding in day-to-day nonprofit and funder realities. Rather than treating systems change as abstract, the team brings insight from what is—and isn’t—working on the ground into conversations about how funding structures, decision-making processes, and accountability mechanisms need to evolve.
I saw this most clearly in Panorama’s recent partnership with Wellcome, which convened leaders across philanthropy, government, civil society, and academia to examine how the global health architecture could better respond to the priorities of low- and middle-income countries. The dialogue surfaced a shared recognition: while the global health system has driven real progress, it has also become increasingly complex and fragmented, especially as donor priorities shift and traditional funding sources come under strain.
In response, Panorama and its partners helped articulate a clear set of structural priorities: aligning global support behind country-led health systems, strengthening shared global public goods, and improving governance so decision-making is clearer and more inclusive. Underpinning these priorities was a recognition that institutions in Europe and North America have a responsibility to act less as directors of reform and more as partners and co-designers.
Institutions like Wellcome are increasingly asking fundamental questions about what effective global health should look like in the future. Panorama’s ability to engage at this altitude—while staying rooted in nonprofit and community realities—positions it to help connect systems-level ambition with what it actually takes to make change work.
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Looking back on my first 30 days at Panorama, what stands out most is how consistently the same themes show up across the work – from portfolio design, to funder–nonprofit partnerships, to conversations about the future of entire systems. In a moment of real disruption, Panorama’s role isn’t to optimize for one side or one solution. It’s to help funders and nonprofits work better together—grounded in trust, realism, and shared responsibility. That combination feels uniquely suited to the moment we’re in – and to what comes next.
