Close to fifteen hundred people gathered in Brussels at the beginning of April at BE Philanthropy, a one-day event to talk about the work of philanthropy in Europe. The convenor of this tri-annual gathering was the King Baudouin Foundation (KBF), Belgium’s largest public foundation and one of the largest in Europe. The Brussels conference brought together participants from around western Europe including European foundation leaders, advisors, researchers, intermediaries, nonprofit leaders and fundraisers.
I attended the event this year with Myriad Canada, a cross-border giving foundation launched under KBF sponsorship in 2018. I had first participated in the conference in 2023 when the world was still coping with the aftereffects of the pandemic. That year, as I noted in my blog on the conference, the pandemic, war, inflation and social unrest had darkened the mood in Europe. Since then, the continuing war in Ukraine and the policies of the United States towards Europe (and the rest of the world) have only added to the mood of worry. In convening the 2026 conference, KBF’s goal was in part to inspire philanthropy to step up its game in the face of the multiple pressures on European civil society and on the continent more broadly.
What struck me as an increasingly prominent focus for European philanthropy is the need to strengthen democracy in the face of the polarizing and systemic impacts on their societies of economic stress, the increasing use of social media and artificial intelligence, the dislocations of war and the felt decline of local communities. The rise of populist political leaders has been in response to this increasing sense of pessimism about the future and a longing for a past where people had more hope and communities had more social capital. Liberal democracies are facing political challenges to their legitimacy. At a deeper level, the forces of inequality and withering local and civil/social communities are pushing against a liberal democratic model that is being found wanting.
A panel discussion at the conference highlighted the trends and concerns that philanthropists are feeling about the threats to democracy. These threats are linked politically to the rise of more authoritarian and right-wing populist political movements and governments in Europe. As these gain power, they are undermining global coordination and collective action, as well as shrinking the space for civil society. Panel members agreed that philanthropy can play a more active role in supporting mechanisms for integration rather than division, in bringing people together to foster their understanding of other perspectives, and in funding independent and trusted sources of information.
Recognizing the challenges posed by threats to liberal democracy, European funders are reacting with increased commitment. They are directing money to community partners; some foundations are also delivering their own programs. The KBF itself has a Democracy program to “strengthen and defend democratic values”. It does this through projects and support to organizations working on what it sees as five essential components (and leverage points) for a healthy democracy:
The KBF increases its impact in this area by joining in pooled funds. For example, in 2020 it co-founded the European Artificial Intelligence and Society Fund, which supports organizations across Europe working on AI and democracy. KBF also participates in Civitates, a pooled fund dedicated to addressing democratic decline and strengthening civil society, media and digital rights in Europe, which was created in 2017. Increasingly the KBF sees its role as evolving from funder to ecosystem builder and steward, taking a long-term view about the need to invest in an information system that is pluralist and trustworthy, and that strengthens individual democratic agency.
Philea, the European foundation network, is promoting the defense of democracy as a priority for funders. A year ago, it published a briefing for European funders on democratic backsliding on the continent, with opportunities for philanthropic action to address the root causes of such backsliding. Philea runs a Democracy Network for interested funders who want to exchange on strategies to defend and develop democracy. Philea also takes a strong interest in democratic and pluralist media networks. It recently published a research report on how philanthropy is funding journalism and media in Europe. To quote the report, “the field of journalism and media is widely recognised by funders as essential for democracy, accountability and countering misinformation, but it still receives only a tiny slice of philanthropic budgets. Despite this, there is growing urgency, a slow but visible increase in investment, and a shift toward more flexible, long‑term funding, as the field grapples with a rapidly changing media landscape, unstable business models, and rising threats to independent journalism”. Many of the questions and experiences shared at BE Philanthropy are shared across the Atlantic in Canada. We also face multiple challenges to our social cohesion embodied in loss of local civic space and social capital, loneliness, youth isolation and continuing inequities of all kinds. We too are experiencing huge changes in our sources of information and in the organization of work. Our trust in media and in government is declining. Philanthropy’s response to these challenges is similar on both sides of the Atlantic: more investment in local infrastructure and neighbourhoods, more work to counter the effects of digital harms and to bolster public interest media, and more innovative uses of collaboration, pooled funding and investment tools. What we need in Canada is more urgency of action, and greater alignment of philanthropic efforts. We can learn from the Europeans who are already moving in this direction with a real firmness of purpose.
It’s hard not to worry these days about what is happening to democracy in North America. Yes, this worry is particularly concentrated on the United States given the constant stream of news from the USA about polarization, conflict, and outright attacks on democratic institutions. We have not experienced these attacks in Canada. But we should worry about the frittering away of social cohesion in Canada as we too experience the impacts of social media disinformation, social isolation, and lessening of trust in community, which can lead to a lessening of trust in democratic institutions. We need to reinforce our degree of civic empathy. And philanthropy can play a role in this.
I was struck by this term of civic empathy in listening to the Giving Done Right podcast with Stephen Heintz, the long serving President of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Heintz has been a leader in strengthening civic spaces, culture and empathy across America. He participated in the bipartisan Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship which went on a listening tour (well before the 2024 election). As he puts it, “listening is an incredibly important part of the restoration of trust. We need to approach each other with civic empathy as opposed to civic antipathy, which is what is practiced a lot these days. And empathy is more about trying to put yourself in the shoes of the other and understand them and listening to them rather than trying to persuade them. In our information environment, that is a difficult practice, civic empathy, but it is essential. I think we all need to retrain ourselves in this skill and really listen to each other. That happens in community settings.”
Heintz believes that the best way to rebuild trust by listening is to do it locally, in community, around shared interests. This requires the creation of community space and programming to fill that space and to draw people together. His other insight is that national funders can have more local impact when they collaborate. The Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship devotes a section of its final report Our Common Purpose to the importance of the “hyper-local world of libraries, playgrounds, public parks, community gardens, churches, and cafes” which are the spaces that support associational life. Heintz and the RBF worked with other major American foundations to create the Trust for Civic Life, to help build community gathering spaces and to reinforce civic life across rural America.
This idea of civic empathy of course also applies in urban communities. Without mentioning civic empathy directly, Local Trust in the United Kingdom gives unrestricted funding to 150 communities to enable them to transform and improve their lives and places as they choose. People feel listened to when they are given the resources to act. In Canada the Tamarack Institute is proposing a Strategy for Belonging aimed at strengthening communities and “sustaining our democracy by way of community-led involvement”. A more involved and empathetic community is likely to be a community that supports democracy. It is also a community that engages people in strengthening their own economic “nutrition” as the social enterprise Shorefast puts it. The link from trusting community to strengthened economy to engaged democracy is clear. DemocracyXChange at TMU is planning a conference in 2026 to explore these links and how to build an economy that strengthens democracy and “deepens civic trust”.
The idea of civic empathy and its connection to lessening isolation and polarization has been understood for years. Community foundations in Canada know this well and are rallied to the cause of Belonging by their national organization Community Foundations Canada. Local United Ways are also invested in funding community connections. The federal government’s 2025 Budget recognizes the link between a strong economy and a strong community infrastructure and has launched a Build Communities Strong Fund which will help to create more community spaces across Canada, where people can meet through sport, culture and education.
What about the role of Canadian private philanthropy in building civic empathy as a way of strengthening democracy? There are many opportunities to support local community infrastructure and individual foundations have done so. But there are gaps. And this is where more collective action may have more impact, as Heintz suggests. Building civic empathy is a complex challenge. Empathy and listening must work across socioeconomic divides. The places where people gather to work on a common activity, to debate, to meet each other, to read and watch, to garden or to play a sport are all essential. A strategy to build civic empathy can be built around them. Some private foundations have come together in Canada to support local journalism as a way to counter disinformation, and to make connections across all parts of a community. Other foundations have joined together to tackle urban and rural community needs for parks, for cultural spaces, for community gardens, for libraries. These needs are for capital to create and maintain physical space and to fuel the brains that animate them. This is “civic culture”. As the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (sponsor of Our Common Purpose) put it in in their 2025 report Habits of Heart and Mind, “ a strong and vibrant civic culture provides mechanisms to manage collective anxieties about who we are. It makes it possible for people to respect differences, freely exchange ideas, shape institutions, actively engage with diversity and build a more just society.”
In this time when Canada also is challenged to become stronger, a philanthropic commitment to reinforcing civic empathy and civic culture could not be more important.