‘Disintermediated’ giving, asking and helping
Cutting charities out of relationships and processes…
Whether harm any results…
And how charities can reclaim the ground they’ve lost
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A joint project with Kingston University Business School
About this project – why disintermediation is a genuine threat to charities
Over the past 20 years there has been an increasing trend in other actors displacing charities in giving to good causes, asking for support, and providing help for people in needed.
For example, instead of giving to a poverty relief charity, people can make microloans to entrepreneurs to help them work their way out of poverty.
The technical term for this is ‘disintermediation’ – cutting out the middleman. In the charity sector, this has often been understood as relating to crowdfunding. But, as our pioneering work in developing a typology of disintermediation – the first and currently only one of its kind – has illustrated, charities can also be cut out of asking for support and delivering services.
Disintermediation is an existential threat for charities and fundraisers, because if people can provide help and support without going through charities, then what is the need for charities? But, if those other actors aren’t as effective and efficient at doing this as charities, then it is the people who rely on charities who will be affected most.
This joint project with Kingston University Business School aims to better understand these issues, and help charities to reclaim the ground that they have lost. The project has four phases.
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How are charities being displaced?
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Why are charities being displaced?
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What harm results if charities are displaced?
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How do charities ‘re-intermediate’ – claim back the ground they have lost to other actors?
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You can find out more about these phases in the project outline, which you can download here, or click here to scroll to the relevant section on this page.
PHASE 1 – How are charities being displaced? A typology of disintermediation
What are the mechanisms other actors use to cut charities out of giving, asking and providing help?
We have devised a typology of three types and nine subtypes (each with its own variants) showing how nonprofit organisations are displaced from giving, fundraising and providing help through services.
You can find full details of the typology in the Death by a thousand cuts white paper. For an overview, check out the press releases on Critical Fundraising (links below). An earlier iteration of the typology was published in the Journal of Philanthropy and Marketing in 2023. That’s still available, but be aware that this is now considerably expanded.
As well as providing many more examples of how charities are displaced from giving and asking, the white paper explores in detail how other actors, especially companies, as assuming doing good roles in helping people.
Death by a thousand cuts also introduces two new ideas:
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Who controls relationships with donors as a marker of disintermediation
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‘Citizen fundraisers’ – who carry out fundraising on their own initiative outside the remit of reach of charity fundraising departments.
It also considers how philanthropy advisors, along with donor advised funds and giving cycles, can displace fundraisers from stewarding relationships with donors.
You can find more details on:
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The expanded typology, here
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Control as a marker of disintermediation, here
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Citizen fundraisers, here.
More information
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Press release on Critical Fundraising here.
The typology
The typology has three main types, nine subtypes, and several variants of each type. Full details are in the Death by a thousand cuts white paper. You can see a list of the typology by enlarging the image, or clicking here to download a PDF.
There are also two different graphical representations of the typology.
Who controls relationships with donors?
An issue that recurs throughout the white paper is the issue of control as a way to demarcate asking for support that has been outsourced from that which has been disintermediated.
If charities have access to donors to steward relationships with them and make further asks, then any fundraising done by external actors or suppliers is more likely outsourced.
But if those external actors restrict charities’ access to donors and guard their data, then the fundraising has been disintermediated. Some types of fundraising products – such as personal giving apps and shopping websites – use donor privacy as selling point.
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You can see this relationship in the graphic. But to put this in full context, please check out pp48-49 of the Death by a thousand cuts white paper.
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…to top of this page and contents list.
‘Citizen fundraising’
Citizen fundraising is when people who are not members of the fundraising profession take ownership of the use of the methods and techniques of professional fundraising to raise money to help people in need or to further a good cause, but do so without involving a traditional charity in organising or conducting their fundraising efforts (even though they may ultimately donate the money they raise to a traditional charity). A citizen fundraiser is therefore someone who conducts citizen fundraising.
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See pp24-25 for more detail and info citizen fundraisers. We particularly acknowledge the input of two members of the current member of the Rogare Critical Fundraising Network – Cherian Koshy and Anthony Petchel – in shaping our ideas on citizen fundraising.
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Find out more about citizen fundraising on this page on Critical Fundraising.
Philanthropy advisors as disintermediators
Death by a thousand cuts incudes philanthropy advisors, donor advised funds and giving circles as ways that charities are cut out of and displaced from relationships with donors. Based on ideas presented in supplementary discussion paper written by Rogare Critical Fundraising Network member Cherian Koshy (vice president of Kindsight), we argue that not only can philanthropy advisors displace charities from asking for support, but they can also take over as the “primary interpreters and stewards of donor intent, inserting themselves as the central locus of decision-making, relationship management, and impact evaluation”.
Professional philanthropic advice thus introduces a new level of intermediation between fundraisers and donors, with advisors acting as gatekeepers to donors.
Regarding DAFs, the white paper argues that they “arguably represent one of the most structurally significant forms of disintermediation in the modern philanthropic ecosystem: DAFs do not simply mediate giving, they restructure it by separating the economic, emotional, and relational components of generosity into different moments and actors”.
More information
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You can find out more about philanthropy advisors and donor advised funds in Death by a thousand cuts, pp31-32, or check out this page on Critical Fundraising.
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…to top of this page and contents list.
Next steps - phases 2-4
Phase 2 – Why are charities being displaced?
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What are the reasons given and motivations for sidelining and bypassing charities?
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A second Rogare white paper will be published in late Northern hemisphere autumn/fall.
Phase 3 – What harm results if charities are displaced?
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Disintermediation in the charity sector raises ethical and regulatory issues that have barely begun to be researched. Perhaps the main ethical question is whether the people who most need help are the ones that get.
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We’re on track to publish our third white paper by the end of 2026. The Journal of Philanthropy white paper contains some initial thinking around these challenges.
Phase 4 – How do charities ‘re-intermediate’ – claim back the ground they have lost to other actors?
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Throughout 2027, Rogare and Kinsgston Business School will work with the Chartered Institute of Fundraising to identify the ways charities can do this (and we are looking for other partners in other parts of the world). We’ll planning a series of in person and virtual focus groups, symposia, seminars/webinars. More details will be announced later in 2026.
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We then intend to produce a toolkit with guidance and recommendations for how charities can win back the ground and places in relationships the they have lost. We're aiming to do this late 2027 or early 2028.
Resources and more information
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‘A new typology of disintermediated giving’ in the Journal of Philanthropy and Marketing (open access).
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ERNOP (European Research Network on Philanthropy) research note on the typology, summarising the Journal of Philanthropy and Marketing paper
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Rita Kottasz talks about the typology to Rhodri Davies on the Why Philanthropy Matters podcast
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Ian MacQuillin‘s article in Alliance magazine
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…to top of this page and contents list.
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Ian MacQuillin discusses disintermediation and fundraising ethics with Rhodri Davies on the Why Philanthropy Matters podcast
Disintermediation project team
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Neil Gallaiford – formerly ST (Stephen Thomas Ltd) (Canada) (stepped down from the project)
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Heather Hill* – Chapel & York (USA)
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Tum Kazunga – Build It International (UK)
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Cherian Koshy* – Kindsight (USA)
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Rita Kottasz* – Kingston Business School, Kingston University (UK)
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Juniper Locilento – National Arts Centre (Canada) (stepped down from the project)
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Ian MacQuillin* – Rogare – The Fundraising Think Tank (UK)
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Meredith Niles* – Plan International (trustee) (UK)
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Emma-Louise Singh – Nova Fundraising (UK)
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Phil Slocombe* – Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust (UK)
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Channing Wallbridge*- Positive East (UK)
In addition to the full members of the project team, the following contributed ideas and insights to the expanded typology: Caoileann Appleby (Irish Cancer Society – Ireland); Lucinda Frostick (Remember a Charity – UK); Marina Jones* (English National Opera – UK); Hannah Kowszun* (consultant – UK); Anthony Petchel* (Mission Trajectory – USA); Lesley Ray* (Mater Foundation – Australia); Claire Routley* (Legacy Futures – UK); June Yu Steward* (Creagivity – Australia); Andrew Watt* (Accordant – UK).
* = current member of the Rogare Critical Fundraising Network. (Neil, Juniper and Caoileann are former members.)
