Greetings Friend,

Last month, Nidale Zouhir from the Council’s Government Affairs team attended the G20 summit in South Africa as part of a delegation led by Worldwide Initiatives for Grantmaker Support (WINGS). She attended sessions about the importance of public-private-philanthropic partnerships, the growth of South African civil society, and philanthropy’s role in building cross-sector coalitions.

As the U.S. prepares to host the 2026 G20 Leaders’ Summit, we’re exploring where philanthropy can engage in partnership with WINGS and peer networks. We’ll share more as this work takes shape. If you’d like to join early conversations around the U.S. G20 process, please reach out to victoria.mendez@cof.org.

Upcoming at the Council

Expanding the Council’s Latin America & Caribbean Funder Circle

In 2025, we begin hosting peer gatherings for funders working in Latin America and the Caribbean. This group will continue meeting regularly in 2026. This month, we also launched a new virtual community on the Philanthropy Exchange for regional funders to connect, exchange insights, share resources, and discuss emerging legal, regulatory, and security developments. If you’d like to join, please email victoria.mendez@cof.org.

Join the community on Philanthropy Exchange

Not If, But How: Climate, Movements, and Transformative Change

Council member CLIMA Fund is hosting a four-part series exploring the climate crisis through the leadership and lived expertise of grassroots movements across the Global South. Designed for funders looking to deepen their understanding of climate change and where to begin supporting effective, community-rooted solutions, the dialogues will take place on January 27 and February 3, 10, and 17 from 12–2 pm ET.

Learn more and register

Legal and Regulatory Resources

Global Development in Transition: U.S. Government Updates

• Center for Strategic & International Studies releases a new landscape for development: Part I of this new series details the rapid dismantling of USAID, deep cuts to U.S. foreign assistance, and the loss of technical capacity across key agencies under the second Trump administration. The report highlights how these shifts mark a historic departure from long-standing development practice and begins to outline what this emerging landscape means for global engagement going forward.

Global Philanthropy Updates

• The closure of USAID has accelerated a major shift in global development: With U.S. government funding in retreat, philanthropy is stepping into a new leadership moment rooted in proximity and partnership. New Council on Foundations survey data shows funders are not pulling back from locally led development. In fact, many are increasing direct support to local organizations, with 20% to 90% of their grant dollars now going to community-rooted groups.
• MacArthur Foundation announces major investment in pandemic prevention: The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has awarded $100 million to Sentinel, a private pandemic-prevention network operating across Africa. The initiative will expand cost-effective pathogen testing, real-time outbreak monitoring, and training for local scientists, providing critical support for community-led surveillance at a moment when many governments are scaling back global health spending.

Global Legal and Regulatory Updates

• Crackdown on civil society in Egypt deepens: Egypt’s 2019 associations law continues to severely restrict independent civil society, granting authorities broad power to block NGO registration, reject funding, and limit activities to narrowly defined “development” work. Despite the closing of a long-running criminal case, many organizations report that security agencies still exert near-total control over their operations.

New Member Spotlight

Welcome to the global funders that joined as new Council members in November: Thousand Currents, Fund for Global Human Rights, Sequoia Climate Foundation, and NGOSource/TechSoup.

Keep in Touch!

Share your organization’s impact story with us at
engagement@cof.org.

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