Call For Articles: Philanthropy Impact Magazine Issue 34 (Spring Edition 2026)
Working Theme: Financial and Impact Reporting for Good
What Is Missing, Why It Matters, and What Needs to Change Across the Sector
About the Issue
Philanthropy Impact Magazine invites thought leaders, professional advisors, investors, philanthropists, and charity and social enterprise practitioners to contribute to this Spring 2026 issue focused on financial and impact reporting across the full spectrum of capital—from charitable giving through to impact investment.
The purpose of this issue is not to restate existing debates about impact measurement or reporting frameworks. Its ambition is to shift practice.
By bringing together perspectives from across the ecosystem, this edition will explore:
- What is currently lacking in financial and impact reporting
- Why this matters for decision-making, due diligence, and accountability
- What needs to change to support better, more defensible deployment of capital for social and environmental good
We are particularly interested in perspectives grounded in real-world practice, rather than theory alone.
Scope and Focus of Contributions
This call is not seeking generic commentary on impact measurement, ESG reporting, or narrative-led impact storytelling.
Instead, this issue focuses on financial and impact reporting as it is actually used by:
- Advisors assessing suitability and professional risk
- Trustees discharging fiduciary duties
- Investors making capital allocation decisions
- Funders seeking confidence that outcomes are real, proportionate, and evidence
We welcome contributions that critically examine whether current reporting genuinely supports professional judgement, and where frameworks, standards, or market practices fall short in practice.
Contribute Your Insight
We seek clear, thoughtful, and practical articles that examine weaknesses, risks, and emerging solutions in financial and impact reporting, including implications for:
- Charities and social enterprises
- Philanthropists and donors
- Social and impact investors
- Trusts and foundations
- Private client professional advisors (wealth, tax, legal, fiduciary)
- Intermediaries and platforms operating across the spectrum of capital
Articles may be conceptual, technical, advisory-focused, or practice-led, but should aim to advance understanding and prompt action.
What We’re Looking For
- Original thought leadership grounded in real-world experience
- Critical perspectives on existing reporting standards and approaches
- Practical examples, case studies, or advisory insights
- Clear articulation of gaps, risks, and consequences of poor reporting
- Forward-looking ideas on what “good” should look like in future
- Concise, accessible writing with actionable takeaways
Featured Topics to Guide Your Contribution
- What Is Missing in Financial and Impact Reporting?
- Gaps in consistency, comparability, and credibility
- Narrative reporting versus decision-useful data
- Challenges across different asset classes and capital structures
- Impact Reporting Across the Spectrum of Capital
- Differences between charity reporting, social investment, and impact investing
- Where existing frameworks fall short when capital is blended
- Misalignment between donor, investor, and beneficiary perspectives
- Due Diligence Challenges for Donors, Trustees, and Investors
- How weak reporting undermines effective due diligence
- Assessing impact, risk, and additionality
- Practical challenges faced by advisors and intermediaries
- The Role of Private Client Professional Advisors
- Advising clients in the absence of reliable or comparable impact data
- Fiduciary duties, reputational risk, and suitability considerations
- Supporting informed giving, social investment, and impact allocation
- Donating, Social Investment, and Impact Investing
- How reporting affects capital allocation decisions
- Trade-offs between financial return, impact, and risk
- Managing client expectations and outcomes
- Frameworks, Standards, and Measurement
- Limits of existing impact measurement and reporting approaches
- Over-reporting, under-reporting, and “impact washing”
- The burden of reporting on charities and social enterprises
- Technology, Data, and Innovation in Reporting
- Opportunities and risks of digital tools and platforms
- Use of data, automation, and AI in impact reporting
- Improving transparency without increasing complexity
- What Needs to Change?
- Practical recommendations for funders, advisors, and organisations
- Improving proportionality and usability of reporting
- Aligning incentives across capital providers and recipients
Why Contribute?
By contributing, you will:
- Raise your professional profile among a highly engaged peer audience of advisors, trustees, philanthropists, and sector leaders
- Position yourself as a credible authority on fiduciary decision-making and impact
- Influence how impact, risk, and accountability are understood and assessed
- Share practitioner insight that reflects the real-world pressures of advisory and governance roles
- Help shape emerging norms around what constitutes “adequate” financial and impact reporting
This is an opportunity to help define good practice—before it is defined for you by regulation, litigation, or retrospective scrutiny.
Submission Guidelines
Articles should address the theme from the author’s perspective, or an author may propose an alternative topic within the theme for this edition.
We welcome contributions from professional advisors, philanthropists, social and impact investors, trusts and foundations, charities, and crypto enthusiasts—including crypto investors, crypto traders, blockchain developers, DeFi users, Web3 advocates, and other key stakeholders including tech developers, regulators and policy experts.
When published, the magazine has an initial exposure to our contact and social media list (over 7000 contacts on our mailing list and over 14,000+ on LinkedIn (16,500 on John Pepin’s LinkedIn) and 2500+ on X) composed of professionals onto (U)HNWI (private client advisors, wealth management, private banking, independent financial advice, tax, and legal sectors), philanthropists and social investors, trusts and foundations, and charities.
Contributors will be promoted/tagged via social media, and an author bio will be included in the publication.
Submission Process
- By 28 February 2026: Email your proposed topic to John Pepin at john.pepin@philanthropy-impact.org. Suggested subject: Article Proposal – Magazine Issue 34
- Final article deadline: 31 March 2026.
- Ideal article length: ~1,000 words.
For examples of past magazines, go to https://www.philanthropy-impact.org/magazine/.
If you have any questions or need further clarification, please do not hesitate to contact John Pepin at john.pepin@philanthropy-impact.org.
To download a PDF copy of the call for articles, click here.
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