On Venture Philanthropy

Exploring the world of "venture philanthropy" has been one of the more frustrating parts of this whole project. I started knowing practically nothing about this type of philanthropy, and certain factors complicated my education.

The mass media gave venture philanthropy plenty of hype but most of the coverage was rather facile. The journalists went with the familiar formula of finding supporters and a few detractors but didn't really delve into the lasting impact of this business-meets-philanthropy approach. That being said, the Chronicle of Philanthropy, which covers the philanthropic field, did have Mark R. Kramer, a former venture capitalists-turned-philanthropy consultant, write some interesting articles about venture philanthropy's shortcomings and influence (I'd link articles but you can't read them without a paid subscription to Chronicles of Philanthropy). I'm planning on contacting Kramer this week as I finish up my article.

That venture philanthropy goes by several names, "high-engagement" philanthropy being one. This confused me a bit. Thankfully Michael Moody, who teaches at USC, wrote a paper that explains it all (I've put a link in a earlier blog posting, but here it is again). Moody has been extremely helpful in answering all my questions and I appreciate the academic perspective. Here's an except from an email response he gave me regarding the future of venture philanthropy:

"The idea of VP had probably reached a point of stability in terms of the amount of and type of attention it gets and influence it has. There was the time of great buzz there for a while and then the time of considerable backlash, but now I think the idea continues to be a sort of iconic shorthand for lots of different things happening under the broader label of "new philanthropy." I've recently heard it used a lot as a way to describe "the changes that happened in the field" in those boom years, and the critique of it as "not so new" and as "too brash for its own good" are still around but they are not given as harshly as before and they seem to recognize that now any lasting effect or benefit of this new approach can be seen. So in that sense, there is a hope that in the future this might help the field improve, but a firm conviction (even among proponents) that it won't revolutionize the field. The question is how much of the change in the field that has or will happen can be attributed to VP, and will it be acknowledged as a force of broader change or not. That is a difficult question that we wont' really be able to answer, though most people probably will probably say that there was an overall shift toward things like more accountability and performance measures, and more focus on capacity-building, and more engagement of donors/grantmakers with their grantees, and that VP was one of the influences steering and pushing this change (though not the only one). WHich brings me then to the idea of influencing traditional foundations. I don't think there will be much widespread agreement that VP has had much influence on traditional foundations, even those that changed in the ways I just mentioned. Some of them will certainly see VP as an influence--and certain VP proponents will claim this--but in general the people who run traditional foundations won't likely say that VP was a major influence on any changes they make. They'd point to larger trends, and also attribute any changes to their own long-standing objectives to focus on "making an impact" and being "strategic" about attacking "root causes" and so on. They won't say VP was what made them suddenly focus on impact measures, evalution for accountability, and so on."

As for other resources I've found, I've previously mentioned the help Sean Stannard-Stockton of the blog Tactical Philanthropy has given me.

The Future of Philanthropy, a website run by the Monitor Group, also has a great page on "high-engagement" philanthropy with links to academic and other articles about venture philanthropy. Monitor Group partners with Fast Company to put out the Social Capitalists Awards.

What have I learned about venture philanthropy at this point? I think it's a good complement to other types of charitable giving. Some of the traits of venture philanthropy-- building infrastructure, the giver and receiver working closely, the performance targets--may have existed among charitable foundations before, but venture philanthropy emphasized these points. With the non-profit I reported on, Groundwork Inc., the managerial and technical assistance provided by its venture philanthropists funders really helped. While some people at Groundwork didn't agree with the metrics these funders used, they liked being pushed to meet performance targets (one source said government grants were worse, because they allowed for less days off). And I also want to add that the executive director of Blue Ridge Foundation, the venture philanthropy foundation that gave Groundwork its start, told me that not every foundation should be as hands on as they are, or the non-profit would have too much to deal with.