Comments on: Reframing Philanthropy: A Bullet Point Manifesto

By: Sean Stannard-Stockton

Sean Stannard-Stockton — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 22:38:24 +0000

Thanks for the comment Sam. I personally think that philanthropy and "social movements" can be related, but are not the same thing. However, I also agree that there can be much more to philanthropy than just funding high performing nonprofits. See this post and this one.

By: Sam Talbott

Sam Talbott — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:59:30 +0000

I get the message here. And yet when I think of real, progressive social change and of philanthropy, I harken back to the example of the civil rights movement Or the Green Village movement in India, or anti-apartheid work in S. Africa, or the overthrow of Pinochet, or …). Probably not “high performance nonprofits.” Disorganization, helpful chaos, enormous self sacrifice, limited planning, few benchmarks, shifting goals and locales, leaders vying for attention or power or their “correct” analysis, simple financial reporting if any, budgets done on a napkin, unpredictable inputs and outputs.
Sure. some progressive funders and donors seeded some vanguard efforts, but the movement generally started and succeeded without much organized philanthropy, unless you consider the thousands of hats, baskets or collection plates passed ’round in the 50′s and 60′s.
Does this mean the revolution will not be…funded?

By: Jeff Mason

Jeff Mason — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:50:28 +0000

Well said George!

This is why more $$$ should go to “high-performing” nonprofits. These are orgs that are highly likely to have social impact.

High-performers, as Sean has described in previous posts, have the following:

1. clear, reasonable goals that are inline with their available resources
2. a well thought-out strategy for reaching their goals
3. key milestones/indicators that can be used to measure progress towards its goals
4. quality data which relates their efforts to their desired outcomes so that they know what’s working and what’s not working
5. uses this data to make midcourse corrections and continuously improve

If more $$$ flow to nonprofits with these characteristics then perhaps more nonprofits will strive to be high-performing.

By: Liz Wainger

Liz Wainger — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:20:42 +0000

Loved this post. Cogent, rational about a complex subject.

By: Ingvild Bjornvold

Ingvild Bjornvold — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:05:21 +0000

Nice conclusion – that is what I call performance management. 1) Clear, reasonable, theory of change based on current, available research; 2) tracking the extent to which the program is implemented as intended (outputs) and outcomes achieved as expected; 3) managing to ensure that performance is up to par and making changes as necessary.

By: Maureen

Maureen — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:10:15 +0000

Wonderful, clear, logical, love it.