Philanthropy Daily Digest

This is one of many surveys' predicting that donations have dropped significantly. A few others show the opposite. Giving has a very long history of being tied to economic growth. The economy (as measured by GDP) bottomed in 2009. My guess is that donations by individual donors will end the year flat to up slightly over 2009.

I've argued that there may be a creative tension between measuring and maximizing impact. In this post, Holden Karnofsky discusses "vertical" vs "horizontal" health aid programs in a way that suggests "horizontal" programs may be an example of harder to measure, yet potentially more impactful programs. The post focuses on GiveWell's top rated charity, Village Reach, which seems to have overcome the creative tension.

Lucy Bernholz, the best philanthropy futurist by a long shot, lays out the changing landscape of philanthropy advice and why the future might not look like what the field is expecting.