A Plan to Maximize Our Impact
A Plan to Maximize Our Impact
By Reggie Shuford
For 90 years, Independence Foundation has supported organizations serving communities in Philadelphia and the surrounding region. Our current funding initiatives - healthcare, arts and culture, human services, legal aid, and reentry, recidivism, and restorative justice - have led to collaborations with a rich, diverse group of grantee partners.
Over the last year, the foundation has been engaged in a strategic planning process to guide our work in the years ahead and for the era that we are in. Throughout 2025 and 2026, I’ve been on a listening tour with key stakeholders.
The strategic plan, which was approved by the board in April, is the foundation’s response to what we heard from grantee partners, others in philanthropy, and likeminded folks in the nonprofit sector. Through this new plan, Independence Foundation is evolving to maximize our impact in the greater Philadelphia region.
With this plan, we will support work that impacts systemic change and challenges social inequities, with justice as the throughline.
By justice, we mean more than fairness. Justice means that people have what they need to thrive, and their rights are protected. Justice promotes opportunity and liberty.
The justice framework will emphasize four interconnected focus areas:
- Equitable Policies and Systems;
- Access to Rights and Legal Protections;
- Decarceration and Restorative Pathways; and
- Narrative Power and Influence.
Our three strategies across these focus areas are grantmaking, partner collaborations and support, and individual development and wellness.
These focus areas and strategies are the pathways to advancing justice.
Our values haven’t changed. Our work is grounded in a belief in creating the conditions for equitable, healthy, and vibrant communities in the Philadelphia region. Unjust barriers should not be in the way of people and communities having access to what they need to thrive and experience physical and mental well-being.
How we work day-to-day will continue to be guided by trust-based philanthropy, the idea that our grantee partners are the experts in their work. We don’t micromanage, and we take seriously our role in helping our partners build their structures and capacity to do what they do. We remain committed to being transparent and responsive and to provide support that is more than financial, creating programming that develops both leaders and people who are just starting their careers in public service.
Our new strategic plan will lead to a shift in our grantmaking. By concentrating our support among fewer grantee partners than we do now - currently more than 170 organizations - we’ll create opportunities for bigger and longer-term investments. This will be new. And in recognition of the change, we’re implementing the strategic plan gradually over two years.
Our mandate under this plan is clear: We are concentrating our resources where we believe they can have the greatest long-term impact. And we want to strengthen organizations and leadership in the nonprofit sector. The people of Philadelphia and the region, especially those harmed by inequitable, unfair systems, deserve as much.
Read more about Independence Foundation’s new strategic plan in this explainer available on our website.