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5 Changes I Want to See in Philanthopy

1. Big Lever Funding

I am currently participating in the Illinois Task Force for Social Innovation. And working on ci2iglobal, and transitioning Inspired Legacies. Having worked in or around nonprofits and philanthropy for a decade, I have seen the field changing. I remember the first budding of Mission Related Investing, when there were basically 3 foundations championing it. Then I discovered people were doing Program Related Investing, and we started to see a broader spectrum of how money was being used in the philanthropic sector. We were collectively working to optimize how much money was creating purpose-filled value.

Last year I toyed around with some friends on mapping the financial spectrum. We are doing it again with the task force. It is exciting to see the hybridity between for-profit and for-purpose work and the financial innovation to support it.

However, concurrently there has been an increasing demand for nonprofits and social purpose organizations in general to quantify what they do. When I look at what I consider charity (aka bandaids on existing issues), these metrics really help tell the story about what an organization is doing to deliver that bandaid.

And… my struggle all along, even before I joined the social change effort, was to find the big levers that shifted how things are. What would it take to remove the need for these bandaids? I keep looking for the big levers.

But big levers don’t get funded until they pay off. Usually.

I never bothered to even look for foundation funding or grants for my work on shifting culture to be more thrivable. Who gives grants for core culture change? I think it ought to be funded. It may actually catalyze more transformation in the system, by aligning people and projects along a story. But how do you measure that? How would you even track the spread of the idea, all the people making hundreds of choices differently because they started to see the world differently? At the end of the journey, you can find your way back. But where is the end of the journey? Can you find where it ends and hear back? Do people even come back to you 2-5 years later and tell you a story of how “thrivability” led them to do something different. (Usually only when they know you.) If five years from now, scientists working on environmental science shift their view to look at the world from a thrivable perspective and it unlocks something that allows a cascade of action to follow that make the world more livable, can I claim that as my impact? Could I possible ask for money for the hope that this happens?

 

2. Be more like an investor and less like middle management

In startup land, this isn’t unreasonable. A startup can develop a product or an idea, pitch it to investors, get some funding…and if their idea works, the funder gets payback. If it doesn’t…well, losses all around. Investors know that most of what they fund will fail. It is an art of finding enough that succeeds with big enough returns to keep going. Where is this attitude in philanthropy? Both transformational change and startups live in complex adaptive systems… they can’t be predicted and causality is challenging if not impossible. And yet, there is a vital part of the startup world funded by people willing to put big dollars into unpredictable possibilities for the small opportunity of making a big return.

Philanthropy, in adopting more practices from the business world, took on a middle management mindset in far too many cases. Instead of optimizing for what might make the biggest change in the area to address, the optimization has tended toward who can show impact in the funding cycle. It tends toward projects that have strong “predictability” in them. I know how many people will be fed, clothed, housed, cared for if the project is funded.

Let’s be careful here. There are some foundations and philanthropists that are willing to be risky with their giving. They give to a collection of efforts knowing that some won’t turn out as hoped. They may even fund across the spectrum from highly predictable charity efforts to systemic change efforts. But the general vibe of the field is one of mitigating risk of money being used ineffectively by having the metrics to back it up.

 

3. I want to see a Venture Capital Philanthropy company. 

adVenturePhilanthropy or something. They share the risk of some of the projects not achieving desired results…but have smart portfolios of giving capital. Think of it like a high end giving circle where you pay sophisticated philanthropic advisors to fund a portfolio of efforts on causes that you and others care about. The advisor or firm then shares with all the donors the report on value created through giving.

 

4. And, like a business, ROI can be based on value created instead of “impact” made.

Impact. Benchmark. Difference from before. What is the impact? I want to see what is the value. Can we switch from impact assessment to tracking the value created? By doing so we open up more options for tracking the transformational work we want to do in really evolutionary giving. (We are working on this in the book Christelle Van Ham and I are writing called, for now, Action Spectrum).

 

5. Power Adjustments

Additionally, as someone who has managed to avoid having any big donors to yank me around, we have got to get better as a collective about the co-creation of strategy. Grantees are so beholden by the power of the money a donor offers that they can’t say, “what you want me to do doesn’t work.” Instead they all too often feel like they must say whatever pleases the money master. This isn’t really their fault. Nor is it the fault of the givers of money. Both sides need to work on creating agency for everyone involved, which takes a lot of conscious practice and communication clarity.

Collectively, we need to truly and deeply believe that everyone at the table working on transformation has some value to contribute. That value may come in different forms: it may be time or ideas, or network or skill, and of course money or influence. When we cater to the one with the money we make small or even invalidate the other forms of capital at the table – the experience capital or intellectual capital etc. And that will undermine our shared goals. It gives us less assets to work with instead of more! We all have power. It can come in many forms. It doesn’t make us equal… it just allows us each to have something to offer. And thus everyone at the table of social transformation is valuable.

Adventures in New Giving

I am super excited to see Adventures in New Giving http://www.adventuresinnewgiving.com/. And perhaps a bit jealous. If I could focus the time and energy, I think Nathaniel is doing what I would do. (see his video here: http://vimeo.com/37718193 ) For years, I have lived a double life working in traditional progressive philanthropy to pay rent while working on bootstrappy social enterprise as a passion. In my consulting work within traditional philanthropy, we talked about the democratization of philanthropy. However, I did not see much of it in practice.
That seems to have come from somewhere else. Tech start-ups culture maybe? Socent pragmatism? Microfinancing brought home? Whatever the path, it has been interesting to watch the birth of efforts like kickstarter and startsomegood.

It seems aligned, naturally, somehow with the collaborative consumption “Mesh” culture.  All of which seem part of a larger movement toward network production. So I am super excited to see Nathaniel capture the stories of this practical democratization of philanthropy.

I am also curious to see how this will hybridize with traditional philanthropy. I have visions of foundations and philanthropists using crowdfunding as part of their due diligence. Something of an early market testing and reliability assessment before or as part of larger funding efforts. Picture a foundation giving a matching grant – matched via startsomegood. This could be really a good time saver for family foundations with intentions to give and little time for sorting through applications.

I can’t wait to see what Nathaniel does with Adventures in New Giving.

I can’t wait to see how we all play together in evolving new giving.

To help fund our awareness of ourselves in this evolution, pitch in at

http://startsomegood.com/Venture/adventures_in_new_giving/Campaigns/Show/adventures_in_new_giving

Catalytic Philanthropy

I am so deeply offended, I felt compelled to write, and now share with you. The following is my reply to Catalytic Philanthropy, an article in the Standford Innovation Review by Mark Kramer. It is subtitled: “Despite spending vast amounts of money and helping to create the world’s largest nonprofit sector, philanthropists have fallen far short of solving America’s most pressing problems. What the nation needs is “catalytic philanthropy”—a new approach that is already being practiced by some of the most innovative donors”

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I must agree with Ryan [in the comments]. The arrogance and condescension in this article is disgraceful. Articles such as What is a Donor To Do? www.tpi.org/downloads/pdfs/research-whats_donor_to_do.pdf [pdf] have a much more respectful approach to addressing the evolution of donors from checkbook philanthropy to transformational giving. Furthermore, playing a blame game with the subtitle, as if it is ills that business and government have failed to address should be solved by philanthropy (when they weren’t solved by business or government). The last thing we need to do is blame the generous souls who go beyond their peers with their compassion by offering their resources. If anything we should point the finger at the business sector for externalizing costs at the expense of their workers, their consumers, and the communities they touch with usual flagrant disregard for the systems in which they operate. Granted personhood and yet acting all too often with little compassion, respect, or even citizenship, the business sector as a whole could take a few lessons from Mr. Kramer, if we adjust a bit of the language. But finger pointing is not going to move us into the world we want.

I suggest a good read and then digestion of Claire Gaudiani’s book, Greater Good: How Philanthropy the American Economy and Can Save Capitalism (http://books.google.com/books?id=s2Bu-k4GvscC&dq=greater+good&printsec=frontcover&source=bll&ots=6m8IrKm6ku&sig=Hj8wm0_cU9M84pBM-pOWgeKQcgw&hl=en&ei=4dGVSrPcKNCTlAfY36mbDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=11#v=onepage&q=&f=false)

I am an advocate of social entrepreneurship and a fan of blended models of business and social benefit. I believe it is more that these address gaps in our tool belt. I agree that we need to collaborate more, and innovate ever more effective ways of addressing the issues we face – individually and collectively. I have doubts that nonprofits are eager for donors to take leadership role in guiding their programs as a learning ground for trying new tactics. Wise philanthropists know how to honor the wisdom and resources of a nonprofit while leveraging the impact of their own dollars.

Finally, I have to question the issue of audience this article addresses, for if it hopes to lure in donors and potential donors into an evolved model of philanthropy, it might be best not to insult the form of philanthropy they have been practicing. If however, it seeks an audience of non-philanthropic individuals driven by the business-approach can solve the world mentality…well then, write on. (although business collaboration networks in competitive markets….mmm…yeah, where are those?)

To be clear, I appreciate the success stories here…and I don’t dispute them. Nor do I dispute the need for evolving philanthropy. In fact, I am an avid supporter of evolving philanthropy. What I take issue with here is the style, tone, and framing.

Philanthropy – field changing

This is extracted from a note I sent out to Leaders engaged with Inspired Legacies:

The theme for my trip seemed to be democratization of philanthropy and knowledge sharing across internet sites and organizational silos.

Tracy and I met up and joined Leif and Eric Utne along with several of my friends for dinner. Eric is doing some amazing work bringing multi-generational folks together for salons. See Utne Reader or Earthcouncils.org. He met up with Peggy from Wiser Earth to talk about adding a layer to Wiser that would enable peer standard form peer feedback across multiple criteria – rate the nonprofits based on your experience with them. It could be something to watch regarding donor attention.

This all flowed very smoothly into a conversation with Christine Egger from SocialActions (a tool that brings together actions from over 30 sites to be redistributed across the net). Christine is quite a thinker, and we had felt like we were path sisters when I met her in May. We want to have an event and produce a book/report/catalog with the aim of catalyzing philanthropy as gentle compassion (more than money and more than just an act of doing). We discussed transformative philanthropy, thrivability, moving from giving to sharing, and much more.

4 years ago there was a Giving conference in Chicago. Christine and I want to do something of a follow up on that. Much progress has been made, and we want to assemble the players for the next stage of the co-evolution. I will keep you posted. The event is tentatively planned for April. See what Christine had to say.

Finally, as I find more and more people in philanthropy on twitter, I also discover better and better information. Just yesterday one of my followers (from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation) linked me to an awesome report which includes about 70% of the trends I have been paying attention to in the field of philanthropy. I strongly encourage at least a perusal of this important report.

The report called Intentional Innovation: How Getting More Systematic about Innovation Could Improve Philanthropy and Increase Social Impact, calls to the importance and value of thinking and using more systematically about innovation in the work of philanthropy and nonprofit sector.

Through this study, the Kellogg Foundation, working with Clohesy Consulting and the Monitor Group, learned some concepts for helping change the way the social sector thinks about innovation.
ttp://www.wkkf.org/default.aspx?tabid=94&CID=6&ItemID=5001167&NID=85&LanguageID=0

Next, the same contact, Stephanie McAuliffe, also shared a bunch of pdfs about network weaving, strategy, social media etc.

I also was pointed to change.org blog — “In Defense of Raising Money” Very cool post discovered by my fellow Chicagoan and brilliant change agent, Nathanial Whittmore.

It is very exciting to see the convergence emerging, and there is no better time than now to shift gears for uplift in the philanthropic sector. Thank you for your part of this effort! Please share your articles, links, insights, and intentions!

Subversive Giving

Of course activists have long given their time and money to causes, but this sort of activism I have not seen before. This kind–the kind where people contribute to a cause, planned parenthood, in the name of a political personality so that this personality would be blanketed in the usual “a contribution has been made in your name” letters. What an interesting way to take advantage of the system!

First, you must understand how much I truly and deeply appreciate subversion. Then you might benefit from knowing that planned parenthood is very good at overwhelming donors with materials and requests, which is why I stopped giving to them (paper is such a waste of resources). Third, I really prize innovation and creative thinking.

So I am totally celebrating this unusual form of philanthropy. Reminds me a bit of shareholder activism. Bravo. Now, my friends, how can we continue to evolve practices like this to fuel our purpose?

Bravo.

Here is the letter, borrowed from What’s Sarah Thinking blog.

Instead of (in addition to?) us all sending around emails about how horrible she is, let’s all make a donation to Planned Parenthood. In Sarah Palin’s name. And here’s the good part: when you make a donation to PP in her name, they’ll send her a card telling her that the donation has been made in her honor. Here’s the link to the Planned Parenthood website:

https://secure.ga0.org/02/pp10000_inhonor

You’ll need to fill in the address to let PP know where to send the “in Sarah Palin’s honor” card. I suggest you use Sarah Palin’s home address, which is:

Sarah Palin
PO Box 21
Wasilla, AK

PS make sure you use that link above or choose the pulldown of Donate–Honorary or Memorial Donations, not the regular “Donate Online”