Since 2013, Alexandra Toma has served as executive director of the Peace and Security Funders Group (PSFG), which connects and supports the global community of public, private, and operating foundations and individual philanthropists advancing peace and security efforts in order to build a more peaceful, just, and equitable world.

Prior to joining PSFG, Toma was executive director of the Connect U.S. Fund, a funder collaborative focused on incentivizing collaboration as a tool to meet today’s global challenges. While a director at the Ploughshares Fund, Toma founded the Fissile Materials Working Group, a coalition that she grew to 80 U.S. and international organizations providing action-oriented policy solutions to combat nuclear terrorism. Before her nonprofit experience, Toma served as a foreign policy and defense advisor to Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA).

Supriya Kumar, global partnerships manager at Candid, asked Toma about the importance of peace and security funding, how the field has evolved in the last 20 years and more recently with the crisis in Ukraine, as well as what best practices and success look like in peace and security funding.

Supriya Kumar: Can you share a bit about what the Peace and Security Funders Group does, as “peace and security” can seem amorphous to some of us?

Alexandra Toma: The Peace and Security Funders Group connects and supports the global community of funders advancing peace and security efforts to build a more peaceful, just, and equitable world. I’m often asked, “What does peace and security mean?” I tell my friends and family that it’s basically everything on the front pages of most newspapers around the world, [which is] truer today than ever, given the war in Ukraine, crisis in Sri Lanka, and other global crises. Peace and security is the front-page news relating to war, conflict, defense, national security, and peacebuilding. Without peace and security, none of the other charitable issues we care about can be accomplished, such as girls’ education, health, and even climate goals. When war strikes, all of our other charitable endeavors and goals either take a back seat or they’re so much harder to accomplish.

SK: Through PSFG and Candid’s joint work on the Peace and Security Funding Map, we know that peace and security funding receives less than 1 percent of total philanthropic funding globally. How have you seen funding for peace and security trend over the last few years?

AT: Overall funding for peace and security changes depending on how you define peace and security. Anecdotally, we’ve seen more funders who normally support peacebuilding efforts outside of the U.S. and Europe recognize that these same peacebuilding efforts are now needed “at home.” Polarization, violence prevention, militarism, the erosion of democracy, and the need for truth and reconciliation are subjects that have traditionally been reserved for “global philanthropy.” But we’re seeing more and more funders supporting this work in the U.S. and in Europe.

Recently, there has been less funding for complex security issues, including nuclear security and climate security. Crucially, however, a great many funders are seeing how peace intersects with issues of equity, inclusion, and justice. These issues must be central to any peace and security funding strategy and should not be treated as “nice-to-haves.”

SK: How has philanthropy’s investment in peace and security been changed by the war in Ukraine? Do you believe this shift will continue?

AT: Not surprisingly, and because Ukraine is an active conflict, we have seen huge amounts of money pouring in, relatively quickly, all of which is very much needed. And funders should be wary of short-term commitments when it comes to saving human lives.

Philanthropy that aims to be long-lasting and effective should not just be rapid-response. Prevention is cheaper in money and human life than post-conflict response. And philanthropy should plan for long time horizons when considering peace and security. What this means in real life is that funders should not just fund according to what’s in the news cycle; rather, they should make deep commitments and stick to them.

We’ve had funders reach out to us, asking where they can give their money to create peace in Ukraine. Unfortunately, the time for conflict prevention is long past; there isn’t much that private philanthropy can do towards diplomacy right now. That said, there have been some positive philanthropic efforts in Ukraine and elsewhere to support human rights defenders, like those of PSFG member Urgent Action Fund and others who work for cohesive and democratic societies. This could be considered prevention work, as it strengthens the fabric of society to be inclusive and more resilient to conflict.

There is also a growing need for “post-conflict” support. After an active conflict dies down, there is always a deep need for physical, psychological, and infrastructure rehabilitation. For Ukraine, for example, I’ve heard experts say that it will take at least a generation to rebuild the country.

Philanthropy can also support international institutions involved in addressing conflict, such as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Red Cross/Red Crescent, and Amnesty International, as well as many excellent local organizations that work directly with victims and survivors. It’s worth mentioning again that there are many conflicts happening around the world, in places that don’t get as much press right now. Funders should stay true to their commitments to these other places as well.

SK: 2020 marked PSFG’s 20th anniversary. How has the field evolved in the last 20 years? Can you share some of the successes and the lessons learned?

AT: I’ve been in this space for nearly my entire career—15 years and counting—so I can speak from personal experience here. I’d love to share both policy-specific successes and general lessons learned.

First, the two policy successes, which come from both ends of the peace and security spectrum: the CAR Peacebuilding Partnership and the Iran nuclear deal. I immediately thought of these examples because both came about as quiet, behind-the-scenes, patient philanthropy that had a lasting change for people globally.

The CAR Peacebuilding Partnership came about as a collaboration between USAID and PSFG members, and their grantee partners. In short, we co-created the parameters of the engagement to best support what local actors in the Central African Republic thought would most effectively lead to sustainable peace. PSFG members came in first and rapidly with $1 million, which was followed by a much larger investment from the U.S. government. And the partnership was addressing exactly what local leaders said they needed to achieve peace in their communities.

The Iran deal was another beautiful example of how philanthropy played to its comparative advantages vis-à-vis policymaking. PSFG members funded Track-II diplomacy between U.S. and Iranian diplomats; they funded nuclear scientists to come up with technical solutions that solved sticking points in the negotiations (around nuclear fuel processing); and they supported a robust congressional advocacy and public education campaign to get the necessary votes in the U.S. Senate to ratify the deal.

An overarching success we have seen in the field is that institutions can and do change. And that’s because people can and do change, and people make up institutions. This is why I’m especially excited about PSFG’s new two-year strategy, where we focus on individual transformation.

Finally, an important, if small, observation is that over my career in philanthropy, I’ve noticed that collaboration has increased. With only 1 percent of all private funding going to peace and security issues, we can’t afford not to collaborate in this sector, so this is an encouraging sign.

SK: PSFG recently released its strategy for the next two years. What are the organization’s top priorities and the greatest challenges you face going into the next two years?

AT: At a high level, we’re looking to build connections and challenge assumptions. Specifically, we’ll do this in three ways. First, we’ll spark and support individual growth for funders in our community. PSFG creates space for members to connect, engage in strategic discussions, learn about emerging issues, share best practices, and reflect on lessons learned. We see how powerful it can be when funders get real about the challenges our field faces and work together on innovative ways of being and working.

Second, we aim to shift our sector by “speaking truth to power.” We work to dismantle harmful narratives and exclusionary, racist practices that have traditionally shaped philanthropy. For example, we’re calling out the racism and inequality we’ve seen crop up around the war in Ukraine. Why was money so fast to pour in to Ukraine and not, say, Yemen, where nearly 24 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance? I spoke at length about this at the recent Skoll World Forum.

Finally, because we see how peace, equity, and justice are inextricably linked, we strive to integrate and center diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices into all we do, from our policies and practices to our programs. We model accountability by making our DEI work and learnings visible and by offering capacity-building resources to our members to help them do the same. Shared learning is powerful!

There are two primary challenges we anticipate moving forward. The first is that some big funders are exiting the field, leaving huge gaps. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is leaving the nuclear space, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation is winding down its cyber initiative. This has huge negative implications for MacArthur and Hewlett grantees, as well as those funders left in nuclear and cyber. But it also could have larger implications—in that prospective peace funders could think that there was some sort of “failure” or that this work isn’t worth funding. Quite the opposite is true! The foundation has been laid for strong work through communities of both grantee partners and funders in this space. I see these gaps as opportunities for funders to enter this space and be even more innovative and bold with their grantmaking.

Our second challenge is a more general observation about the field of philanthropy; it has to do with funders wanting to hoard power and control, rather than operate using trust-based principles. A lot of lip service can be paid to DEI in philanthropy, but those who are making meaningful changes in the right direction see how difficult, messy, and necessary this work is.

SK: How can we encourage philanthropic actors to engage in peace and security funding, when it can often seem like an unachievable goal? What does “good” peace and security philanthropic work look like?

AT: As I said earlier, peaceful and stable societies are fundamental to every other philanthropic goal. Peace and security may seem “unachievable” because it is difficult to measure and attribute. Can a foundation program officer really report to the trustees that the foundation’s grantmaking prevented a war? Yes, measurement and expectations must be realistic, and yet, as humble as we are in this space, we have seen some incredible successes.

I mentioned earlier some successes like the Iran nuclear deal and a catalytic peacebuilding initiative in Africa. There are so many more examples out there, big and small. But we also must change our definition of success, based on how those closest to the issues define it. What does success mean to the community of grantee partners or to those who haven’t yet been able to receive funding? What kind of support do they say they need in order to achieve that? The answers might surprise us.

You don’t have to become a “peace” funder, but you could stand to learn a lot by being in community and communication with funders who understand what it means to navigate complex social and political dynamics. All funders should take a conflict-sensitive approach to their grantmaking. This means that you should know your context and how delicate the balance between peace and conflict is. You should consider what you would do if conflict breaks out and what you could do to help mitigate this. Even if you don’t fund in conflict zones, undertake a power analysis, and understand your own power and privilege as a funder.

Finally, just as conflict is multi-layered, occurring both in the streets and in the halls of power, success in peace and security is multi-layered. We might, for example, support early warning systems that successfully prevent a community from being harmed, but conflict may still be raging among the elites. You helped to save lives, but you didn’t stop the entire war with your funding. That may or may not be defined as success, depending on your philosophy. But I’d argue, it’s not up to you, it’s up to the communities caught in the crossfire.

A good and challenging example of this is the philanthropic work that has occurred over the past 20-plus years in Afghanistan. So much good had been done toward improving women’s inclusion, girls’ education, building stronger institutions, supporting medical infrastructure, and more. And all of that hard work seemed to be erased in a fortnight last summer as the Taliban took over. Does this mean that the 20-plus years of funding was all for nothing? No. All that funding was, and still is, meaningful, because of all the human lives that were saved, the Afghan girls who became women leaders, and other gains that we perhaps can’t yet see. We don't know what the future holds for Afghanistan, and some problems cannot be solved with money. But we must not give up on the people who are doing seemingly impossible and critical work to build peace, even as the context has gotten much more complex.

SK: How can philanthropy work with governments on peace and security issues? Is there a role for collaboration and what does that look like?

AT: Philanthropy and government donors should see themselves as parts of an ecosystem. Government funding, at least in the peace and security space, is much larger. But philanthropy can be more nimble, experimental, and risky. Public-private partnerships—like the CAR Peacebuilding Partnership—are an option, but admittedly, those can be unwieldy. Also, at least in the U.S., many funders are restricted by burdensome IRS and Treasury rules. Especially when it comes to saving lives, governments could take a much more humane and realistic approach with philanthropic partners, which they should consider peers and collaborators in this work.

At a minimum, public and private donors who are both working on the same issues must be in communication. There must be open channels of information sharing and support. I’m proud to say that we at PSFG do this very well!

SK: What are best practices for peace and security funders and new funders entering this space? Are there specific considerations with regard to Ukraine?

AT: At a minimum, funders need to be in close contact with others funding the same issues and in the same regions or countries. If you think you can go it alone, or that your “innovative” ideas mean that you don’t have to meaningfully consult anyone else, then your hubris will undermine your effectiveness.

Join communities of funders to learn from and with them, and share what you have learned. Avoid duplicating efforts and, ideally, collaborate with other funders. Even if you don’t consider yourself a “peace” funder, do a conflict or power analysis on the issue and location where you fund. You can start by asking these foundational questions: Who holds power? Who is considered an “expert”? What does safety look like, and safety for whom? Who is marginalized? How can you bring the most marginalized into the fold with your grantmaking? What does it mean to “do no harm” in this particular situation?

In terms of Ukraine, there are still many humanitarian needs, like food aid, shelter, and medical attention. There are also millions of refugees who need urgent support. Funders should support trusted, local charities, and do both rapid-response funding and commit to long-term support. All those working for long-term peace—in Ukraine and myriad other places in the world—deserve sustained, trust-based support from our sector.

—Supriya Kumar