Dear friends,
2025 will go down in history as an extraordinary year. We witnessed extreme changes in the global landscape, with significant shifts in the post-WWII political order, a drive towards authoritarianism, and the drastic decline of development assistance.
The dismantling of USAID as well as significant cuts to the Departments of State and Labor have had catastrophic effects on marginalized communities and the ecosystems that HU supports. In a survey we conducted midway through the year, 44 percent of respondents reported that their organizations had less than six months of funds remaining; 17 percent said they were already out of funds.
In spite of these “collapses”, we saw continued commitment and resilience among communities working towards peace, freedom, and justice. We also witnessed unprecedented levels of collaboration and partnership across civil society and philanthropy.
Over the course of 2025, HU provided emergency assistance, helped partners strategize about new ways of operating, and engaged in sensemaking, advocacy, and co-funding with peer donors. We also initiated and participated in multiple conversations to redefine and reimagine the global system of peacebuilding, aid, and collective action, including co-launching the Funders Roundtable for the Future of Development.
In terms of our core areas of focus, we saw progress in worker power, driven by landmark agreements and shifting norms around purchasing practices; while the Global Migrant Workers Network, a worldwide community supported by HU, continued to grow in strength and influence. Alongside colleagues at MacArthur and Wellspring, we began a journalism fund focused on supporting global newsrooms operating in complex environments.
Additionally, we helped shape the global discourse on wellbeing of those at the frontlines, launched a new engagement framework for Peacebuilding, and co-led an expert panel that made recommendations to improve inclusion and accessibility in the Peacebuilding Sector. We shared our Racial Justice and Equity strategy, deepening our commitment to that work. And, even in an often challenging environment, we've continued to advocate alongside our partners for policies that better support communities most affected by conflict and exploitation.
In line with our commitment to learning, we commissioned a 10-year retrospective study of one of our longest running efforts - combating forced labor in the Thai seafood industry. The study found that while the results were not spread evenly, significant transformation has taken place over the past decade, and the most egregious forms of forced labor and human trafficking were successfully addressed.
In 2025, we also took the time (with staff and board) to articulate our refreshed vison and purpose statements:
- Our Vision: A world where people and the planet flourish together.
- Our Purpose: We transform harmful systems into pathways for peace, freedom, and justice.
In 2026, we will be building on these to further flesh out our next organizational strategy, one that can truly enable us to meet this moment. While we expect many of our areas of focus to remain, we are eager to explore ways to facilitate the transformation of systems we work within, ensuring they’re adaptive to shocks in this drastically changed context.
We also received helpful and timely feedback from our partners through the Grantee Perception Survey that will help us continue to improve our grantmaking. We will be sharing our learning in more detail soon, but we were pleased to see that we maintained our areas of strengths from our last survey in 2022 while making improvements in other areas.
2026 will no doubt bring a host of challenges, including a “might is right” approach to geopolitics, further cuts in government funding, a decline in traditional bipartisan support for many of the issues that HU advocates for, and further erosion of norms around human rights.
While we cannot control these external changes, I’m confident that, along with our partners, we will continue to show up with care, compassion, and a deep respect for dignity and lived experience of those on the frontlines. We believe that doing so would be the best way to live into our purpose to transform harmful systems into pathways for peace, freedom, and justice.
With much appreciation
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