The best Philanthropy newsletters

Delta Fund's newsletter challenges the assumptions of philanthropy and impact investing, arguing that ESG, win-win and climate agreements have failed to change a broken economic system. Its issues mix pointed critique with grounded case studies, such as a food-locker network, and speculative fiction about AI risks.

Nonprofit AF is a sharp, opinionated newsletter from a nonprofit sector writer who critiques civility norms, white moderation, and rule-following in philanthropy, often with dark humour. Readers get a critical take on power and conflict-avoidance in nonprofits, plus event invitations and calls for reader stories.

Dispatches from people working in Moral Ambition projects, focused mainly on tobacco control and strategic litigation against health-harming industries. Issues combine first-person field experience with arguments about funding gaps, legal strategy and advocacy.

Metaculus's Substack shares forecasting analysis on AI-related philanthropy, such as how Anthropic and OpenAI IPO wealth may flow to charities, and on AI existential risk, using interactive Radiant maps. Readers get probabilistic forecasts paired with explicit assumptions and reasoning behind them.

A curated list of open funding opportunities, grants, prizes and partner calls for social enterprises and non-profits, organized by sector with deadlines. Each issue opens with a short analysis of funding trends, such as AI-related money and gated European consortium calls.

This newsletter from Invest in Open Infrastructure shares its annual State of Open Infrastructure reports, analysing grant funding flows to the open tools research relies on. Readers get data-driven findings on where funding goes, methodology notes, and links to dashboards and datasets.

Watsi's blog shares staff profiles, essays on philanthropy and global health funding, and reflections from interns on the organization's mission to bring healthcare to people who lack it. Readers get an insider view of how a crowdfunding nonprofit thinks about where donations go and whether they actually help.

A newsletter from a fundraising foundation that collects contributions from settlers and redistributes them to Indigenous community members, with thank-you lists for donors and promotion of a settler discussion series on colonial history. Readers get updates on the foundation's grants and impact, plus framing around reparations and allyship.

Rendere Environmental Trust is a public giving fund that channels donations to Australian nature conservation with no fees, built on the legacy of a private family fund. Its newsletter mixes fund updates and calls for new donors with field reports from grantmaking partners, such as a Tasmanian old-growth logging visit.