Category Archives: Philanthropic Capital Markets

How Philanthropists Can Jump Start The Impact Investing Industry

This is a guest post from Colby Dailey. Colby manages the affordable homeownership initiative Cornerstone Partnership for NCB Capital Impact. She has been working in and alongside the philanthropy sector as a grantmaker and practitioner for over ten years. By Colby Dailey I believe that philanthropists’ willingness to pay for social returns positions them to […]

Burning Bridges to Make Venture Philanthropy Work

This is a guest post by John MacIntosh of SeaChange Capital Partners, a nonprofit firm that arranges collaborative growth capital funding for outstanding nonprofits. By John MacIntosh I joined SeaChange Capital Partners after a career in venture capital. In my experience on the inside, the venture capital market is a dynamic system where three key […]

Social Innovation Fund Application Repository

As I announced in my column yesterday, I am collaborating with the Chronicle of Philanthropy to host a repository for non-finalist Social Innovation Fund applications. The 11 finalist applications are available on the Fund’s website along with the comments of reviewers. To kick things off, Social Venture Partners has published their non-finalist application, which you […]

When to Invest & When to Give

This is part two of a six part series exploring the sessions in the Tactical Philanthropy track at the Social Capital Markets conference. Session Description: When to Invest & When to Give For all the talk of producing a blend of social and financial value through giving and investing, little is known about when a […]

Scaling Social Impact

This is part one of a six part series exploring the sessions in the Tactical Philanthropy track at the Social Capital Markets conference. Session Description: Scaling Social Impact In business, scaling requires companies to increase their organizational capacity and output in order to generate greater profits. Nonprofit organizations can scale social impact by not only […]

Builders, Buyers & the Social Innovation Fund

On Friday afternoon, Nathaniel Whittemore of the Social Entrepreneurship blog sent me an email questioning the enthusiasm in my recent post about the Social Innovation Fund (SIF). Nathaniel is someone whose opinion I greatly respect and his points of contention were very valid. So I sent him back a detailed response, which (with his permission) […]

Chasing Philanthropic Opportunities

The general framework of how money flows in the nonprofit sector is focused on the assumption that nonprofits need to chase donations. This is also how the business sector works; companies chase revenue. But investing is different. Investors often are the ones chasing the best investment opportunities. It is simply an issue of supply and […]

Missed Opportunities for Social Innovation Fund?

When I spoke with new Social Innovation Fund director Paul Carttar earlier this week, he said that he appreciated the many voices that have commented on the Fund here at Tactical Philanthropy. Personally I think that reader Adin Miller has consistently offered some of the most interesting comments. In today’s guest post, Adin lays out […]

Curmudgeonly Comments: Online Capital Markets for Nonprofits?

This is a guest post from George Overholser of the Nonprofit Finance Fund. This post follows the bullet point format George used when he wrote the Bullet Point Manifesto guest post last year. By George Overholser Someone recently defined nonprofit “mid-caps” as organizations with revenues in the $5 million to $25 million range. We need […]

Are Social Capital Markets a “Bad Idea”?

The Philanthropy Central blog hosted by the Center for Strategic Philanthropy & Civil Society at Duke University has quickly established itself as a must read. The most frequent reason that philanthropy leaders cite when I ask them why they don’t write a blog is that they don’t have the time. So Philanthropy Central’s unique, week […]