2025
In the United States, there are over 1.8 million charitable organizations. In 2022, there were nearly 2 million active donor-advised funds. In 2023 alone, Americans gave over half a trillion dollars to charity.
These figures speak to the urgency of philanthropy today. Faced with multiple, simultaneous, era-defining crises, people are investing their time and money to advocate for change.
And yet. From the ever-advancing climate crisis to the ubiquity of microplastics, from collapsing ecosystems to omnipresent humanitarian crises, it is by no means assured that this incredible outpouring of compassion is having the desired effect. Perhaps it is time to rethink how philanthropy might create a better world.
There is a shortcoming in traditional philanthropy: it doesn’t question the foundational assumptions under which philanthropy becomes necessary. However well-meaning, without changing the way we think, philanthropy can inadvertently reproduce the very problems it seeks to alleviate.
Research has made the case that so-called “elite philanthropy” is implicated in a new age of inequality, and may even help cause it. Status inequalities can be further reinforced through the well-meaning work of non-profit organizations. Philanthropy has even been complicit in replicating racial inequalities and diminishing the effectiveness of community voices.
At the root of these issues is an imbalance, imposed by the structure of charity itself: on one side the empowered giver, on the other the needy recipient. Without the willingness to question the thinking that gives rise to these categories, philanthropy is prone to replicating the unequal conditions it sets out to unseat.
For philanthropy to truly create a better world, in other words, it must change the way we think.
The Yogi Foundation is predicated on the notion that philanthropy should be a field of inquiry. We seek not only to improve material conditions but to challenge the patterns of thought that allow their degradation. We support creative collaborations that shift perspectives and innovate across science, art, and culture. Our projects enable learning, promote questioning, and invite curiosity – into not just the way things are, but also the way they could become.
When we wish to reimagine the world, we need new stories. Stories show that the world is the way we imagine it, and we can imagine something different.
The Yogi Foundation is set to tell a new philanthropic story: one that shifts our frames of reference and reinvigorates our sense of wonder.
When we set our roots in relationships, we can take on the work of imagination together. When we set aside “donor” and “recipient,” and instead ground ourselves in collaborations, partnerships, and reciprocity, we can develop conditions in which philanthropy, finally, fosters a world in which charity is no longer necessary.
Ours is the work of shared imagination. Join us in rethinking what’s possible.
