This article was originally published in Alliance Magazine on November 4, 2025
By Patricia McIlreavy, president and CEO of the Center for Disaster Philanthropy.
Recently, I participated in Esperançar, Hope in Action, at the IDIS – Institute for the Development of Social Investment Brazil Philanthropy Forum.
Over the course of the day, despite the incredibly difficult environment of funding withdrawals and increased climate risks, what resonated for me was the focus on solutions and positivity. Words like hope, love and legacy surfaced again and again.
These weren’t offered as Pollyanna-isms or naive optimism. Instead, they were a collective acknowledgement that the time is now for us to explore new solutions, to move beyond the inertia of what was, and to be invigorated by what can be.
Patricia McIlreavy was one of the speakers at the Forum, on the panel “Hope in Action in Times of Climate Change”. Credits: Andre Porto
During the opening session titled, ‘Hope is Ancestral,’ Daniel Munduruku challenged those of us in the room to ask ourselves: Are we being good ancestors? To look at the now of our legacy and ask ourselves, will what I do today remain?
It was a question that stood in stark contrast to events I attended just a week earlier during the UN General Assembly in New York, where many seemed to be grieving for today, rewriting yesterday and holding a profound sense of gloom for tomorrow. That grief is legitimate. The structures and systems that once supported millions in need have been dismantled without clear transitions, leaving vast trust and skills gaps in their wake.
And yet, in Brazil, a country where communities face uncertainty and a disproportionate vulnerability to the growing frequency of climate change-related hazards, I couldn’t help but see the dichotomy in the approach to philanthropy. The ask of philanthropy wasn’t one of saving or gap-filling. It was an invitation: to collaborate strategically, to incubate community-led initiatives and to experiment with innovative finance.
During the session ‘Companies Sowing Transformation’ on corporate social responsibility, the challenge to the room was to think in terms of systemic transformation. Jargon was notably absent. Instead, speakers urged us to reframe our thinking from ‘How can we help?’ to ‘How can we be part of the change you are pursuing?’
In David Kim’s ‘Humanity: The Origin of Hope” session, he posed the question: “Who are we and what ought we to be?”. It’s an excellent question for all of us to explore and examine. Here are a few ideas to get us started:
See what is already present
Local, national and regional actors are, and have been, ready and willing to lead their own development and disaster recovery efforts. Is it always perfect? Of course not. But neither is the international aid system.
What does work? Collaboration, clarity and shared capital.
What gets in the way? When we muddy collective solutions with ego-driven mandates or existential thinking that centers the donor rather than the community.
Recognise that not all philanthropy is big-dollar philanthropy
The Brazil Giving Research 2024 reported that 50 per-cent of the population donated in response to emergencies last year, often outside their home states. The recent CAF World Giving Report 2025 noted similar trends, demonstrating that generosity is not the exclusive domain of the wealthy. Rather, it is deeply rooted in community, shared purpose and a belief in mutual aid.
Stop getting in our own way
The Brazil report and the latest Edelman Trust Barometer both highlighted a decline in trust in nonprofits. As I wrote in ‘Turning Urgency into Opportunity’, ‘Trust, accountability, and compelling storytelling matter, not just to raise funds in the first weeks, but to earn the public’s confidence in the months and years that follow.’
As philanthropists, we must model trust. We must work towards partnerships that stop conflating having the money with having the solutions.
It’s easy to look to the future with despair. Yet, there are a million reasons to look to it with hope. These reasons exist in the courage of those already leading change, in the generosity of those who give what they can, and in the conviction that together, we can do something today that makes us good ancestors for tomorrow.
In the words of Paulo Freire, a Brazilian philosopher, ‘I am not hopeful because I am naïve, but because I am stubborn.’
May we all hold fast to that stubbornness and continue to seek to be the best ancestors we can be.
