About Proximate

Proximate, we’re a bit like Puck Magazine — we go deep on several specific and important topics. That’s what sets us apart.

While others skim the surface, we dig in. We go deep across seven editorial verticals. Each one explores how financial flows shape our world — from billionaires and bureaucrats to grassroots organizers and frontline systems.

Our Focus Areas

Here are our verticals. Each one explores how financial flows shape our world — from billionaires and foundation leaders, to frontline organizers around the world.

Foundation World

How institutional giving is evolving — or resisting change.

  • Grassroots Grantmaking – Exploring Trust-Based & Participatory Philanthropy – who decides, who receives, and what changes when power is shared.
  • Community Philanthropy — the interplay of money between Global North–Global Majority
  • Endowments – the quiet giants. How philanthropic endowments are managed, governed, and increasingly shifted.

Frontlines

How money moves at the ground level — and how it’s managed and stewarded by those closest to the work.

Regions

How money moves within specific ecosystems and geographies.

Heirs & Billionaires

The rise of next-gen givers and the shadow of old money.

  • DAF Reform – our Unlocking Abundance series explores how donor-advised funds are being challenged and reimagined.
  • Donor Advisors – the quiet brokers and gatekeepers shaping how the wealthy give.
  • Next-Gen Philanthropy – globally, how young billionaires and heirs are rewriting (or recycling) legacy models of giving.

Pathways

Emerging projects on different systems of money moving…

  • Repairing Development – Beyond the traditional development model — what comes next?
  • Proxonomics – exploring the rise of participatory investment models in the United States: from the design of democratic funds, to negotiations over community accountability, to the historical and policy foundations shaping what’s possible.
  • Beyond Elections – What makes a democracy function between and beyond elections?

Foundation World

How institutional giving is evolving — or resisting change.

  • Grassroots Grantmaking – Exploring Trust-Based & Participatory Philanthropy – who decides, who receives, and what changes when power is shared.
  • Community Philanthropy — the interplay of money between Global North–Global Majority
  • Endowments – the quiet giants. How philanthropic endowments are managed, governed, and increasingly shifted.

Heirs & Billionaires

The rise of next-gen givers and the shadow of old money.

  • DAF Reform – our Unlocking Abundance series explores how donor-advised funds are being challenged and reimagined.
  • Donor Advisors – the quiet brokers and gatekeepers shaping how the wealthy give.
  • Next-Gen Philanthropy – globally, how young billionaires and heirs are rewriting (or recycling) legacy models of giving.

Frontlines

How money moves at the ground level — and how it’s managed and stewarded by those closest to the work.

  • Common Ground – how dollars are managed; our series on the future of fiscal sponsorship.
  • Rethinking Resources – a newsletter on resources for grassroots leaders.
  • Peer-to-Peer Learning Series – a deep dive into how frontline leaders learn across borders, from urban farming in the US to community ambulance models across Africa

Pathways

Emerging projects on different systems of money moving…

  • Repairing Development – Beyond the traditional development model — what comes next?
  • Proxonomics – exploring the rise of participatory investment models in the United States: from the design of democratic funds, to negotiations over community accountability, to the historical and policy foundations shaping what’s possible.
  • Beyond Elections – What makes a democracy function between and beyond elections?

Regions

How money moves within specific ecosystems and geographies.

  • Proximate Brasil
  • Proximate East Africa
  • Proximate Samip

Proximate is an independent media platform covering movements for participatory problem-solving. We look at the news through the lens of money: how it’s given away, how it’s invested, and how it’s distributed by government.
We are a fiscally sponsored project of Movement Strategy Center.

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