Measurement & Evaluation
You Can’t Manage What You Can’t Measure
An excerpt from Frontiers in Social Innovation on making ESG metrics trustworthy
Excerpt
Paul Brest
Philanthropy & Funding
After the Pandemic: Addressing the Permanent Crisis With Pay for Success Programs
Governments have an opportunity to partner with impact investors and philanthropists to turn emergency spending into long-term impact.
Foundations
How to Think About Risk in Philanthropy
Foundation officers and endowment managers too often prefer exceedingly safe grants and investments because of misapplied principles, biases, and concerns about their reputations. A Viewpoint from the Winter 2020 issue.
Review
Measurement & Evaluation
How to Measure and Manage Performance
The book presents a thought-provoking framework for categorizing and implementing performance management strategies based on the causal relationship between an organization’s activities and outcomes and on its control over those outcomes. A book review from the Winter 2020 issue.
UP FOR DEBATE
How Investors Can (and Can’t) Create Social Value
A growing number of investors are attempting to create social value with their investments, but it’s often more difficult to achieve than one might think.
sponsored
Investing for Impact with Program-Related Investments
A report on strategic investing at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
UP FOR DEBATE
Strategic Philanthropy and Its Discontents
Strategic philanthropy is a much-maligned practice that continues to have a great degree of power for today’s philanthropists.
Impact Investing
The G8 Task Force Report: Making Impact or Making Believe?
Impact investors need to acknowledge the importance of “investment impact” and develop effective tools for ascertaining it.
Philanthropy
The Promise of Effective Altruism
The effective altruism movement has the potential to create an aspirational anchor, which may change giving practices over time.
Impact Investing
Unpacking the Impact in Impact Investing
A longer version of “When Can Impact Investing Create Real Impact?” from the Fall 2013 Up for Debate feature.
UP FOR DEBATE
When Can Impact Investing Create Real Impact?
It is possible for impact investors to achieve social impact along with market rate returns, but it’s not easy to do.
Philanthropy
Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen’s Gift to Philanthropy
Giving 2.0 Project U offers a treasure trove of resources for teachers and students of philanthropy.
10th Anniversary Essays
Celebrating Ten Years
One of 16 special essays on how the field of social innovation has evolved and what challenges remain ahead.
Measuring Social Impact
Risky Business
How The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation approaches high-risk philanthropic ventures.
Nonprofits
A Decade of Outcome-Oriented Philanthropy
The outgoing president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation reflects on the importance of strategic philanthropy.
Measuring Social Impact
The Power of Theories of Change
Improving the lives of disadvantaged populations requires proven theories of change.
Social Innovations
Calculated Impact
By estimating the social return on their investments, funders can deploy their dollars more effectively. To demonstrate the power of these calculations, the authors show how three organizations—the Robin Hood Foundation, Acumen Fund, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation—use cost-benefit analysis to evaluate their ongoing programs, choose mission investments, and plan long-term strategies.
Foundations
Money Talk
Top foundation leaders reveal how they set payout rates, executive salaries, and trustee compensation.
Philanthropy
Smart Money
General operating grants can be strategic – for nonprofits and foundations.