Just to be clear, while I think that a tactical approach is likely to lead to better social impact than a strategic approach, I am not in the least bashing strategic philanthropy. It is a different approach, but shares many of the same goals as tactical philanthropy. In fact it is similar in many respects, but it changes the funder’s focus in important ways.

For readers familiar with stock market investing, you’ll be familiar with growth vs value investing. Growth investors favor stocks with high revenue and earnings growth prospects. Value investors focus on companies who they believe are selling for far less than they are worth. But both types want to find good companies, prefer low debt, want great management, etc. And importantly they both have the same goal: to generate maximum risk adjusted financial returns.

I think your Tactical versus Strategic distinction fits well with the discussions you lead some time back about good old Copernicus — the guy who put the Sun in the middle.

Strategic philanthropy often asks organizations to (re)shape themselves in the image of the funder’s strategy. Things can get tough when an organization attempts to deal with more than one Strategic philanthropist at the same time.

Tactical philanthropy, on the other hand, allows high performing nonprofits to be their own source of strategic alignment, and to partner comfortably with many tactical philanthropists at once.

Is it too much of a simplification to say that Tactical philanthropy is resources to do what you do, whereas Strategic philanthropy is resources to change what you do?