Since first reading John Kania, Mark Kramer, and Patty Russell’s article, I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to imagine how to use their recommendations about the tools philanthropies need to solve complex social problems. Two of the authors’ key assumptions are making it hard for me to figure this out. First, their assumption that the existing tools of strategic philanthropy have failed to be effective; and second, that we need new tools especially to address complex problems.

Have We Really Failed?

Kania, Kramer, and Russell lament that “funders and their grantees struggle and often fail to reach their ambitious goals” and that “the more foundations embrace strategic philanthropy, the clearer its limitations become.” This view of failure strikes me as simplistic and premature.

I say simplistic because it misses an important point. The heuristics used for any strategic or program-planning exercise are just that—tools to simplify, not represent complexity. The authors’ argument reminds me of the history of the logical framework in international development—a program design tool adopted by western donor organizations in the 1990s when they realized how hard it was to measure results that weren’t clearly or logically defined. Anyone who has filled out the counter intuitive boxes of a “log frame” knows how frustrating it can be. Critics of this program design tool have long shared the rationale that Kania, Kramer, and Russell use to judge strategic philanthropy: that the linear, predictive framing of a logic model does not represent the more complex and non-predictable dynamics of real-world problems and change. What is perhaps most relevant here is that the log frame remains the standard tool across organizations and sectors despite these critiques; the multifaceted visuals and overly detailed schematics of alternative models were even more difficult to translate to the realities of program planning, implementation, and measurement.

Most, if not all organizations grapple with how best to analyze a problem, define meaningful goals, and chart a path to achieve their goals given their resources and core competencies. While it may seem easy to an outsider, it is hard to do well. I have worked with professionals and organizations in different sectors and have always come back to how relevant and important this first, basic principle is as a starting point for strategy, program, or evaluation planning. The real issue I see is not that this approach has failed, but that there are not yet enough organizations defining and measuring clear goals to produce evidence that their efforts are failing.

The authors’ judgment of “rigorous evaluation” as a failed tool in philanthropy is also premature. Many organizations are just starting to understand the distinctions among, and value of, different evaluation designs and how best to use them to inform both program implementation and funding decisions. The dialogue about how to do this well is still too young for us to judge whether or not it works. The seemingly endless debate about the pros and cons of experimental design, for example, stymied our joint efforts to improve understanding about the more important questions that organizations of all types need to ask themselves to decide what type of evaluation to use under which circumstances: What evidence do we need to make decisions? What evaluation design can produce that evidence? What would we do differently if and when we have it?

Where’s the Real Complexity?

The second major assumption the authors make that I’m grappling with is that philanthropists need new tools, especially when addressing complex problems. This contradicts my experience in international development—where foundations can indeed be key players, but where the more pressing complexity that shapes strategy comes from the collaboration, coordination and funding imperatives that face organizations working to solve tough problems. This complexity increases rather than decreases the value of planning and measurement tools around which different actors can align.

I’ll use the example that the authors provide in their argument: the very complex enterprise of seeking to improve the health outcomes of a particular population. If I take a hypothetical perspective of a large international NGO working in a particular country, here’s what I see:

• With limited unrestricted resources, our operation in country x and the relevant technical support we receive from headquarters are funded primarily by restricted monies provided by US and European bilateral donors with a shared commitment to global health priorities relating to the Millennium Development Goals and post-2015 development agendas. Foundations contribute to these resources, but the lion’s share of our funding comes from these traditional donors.
• With years of experience collaborating with government and other agencies on the ground, we are excited by the global health community’s efforts to agree on a core list of indicators to monitor results, reduce reporting requirements, and leverage current investments in country data and monitoring and evaluation systems. This will help us to prioritize the work we do to support national governments while also adhering to the preferences of our donors so we can continue to secure funding.

Working in the global health community in a country where bilateral, multilateral, and non-governmental organizations collaborate with one another and with government is very different from a public-private western effort to spur impact investing without any particular outcome for people in mind (the example the authors provide of a complex problem). In this former setting, it’s a huge accomplishment when donors, governments, and implementers collaborate to define and monitor results. It’s notable that these results are derived from an overarching theory of change and exactly the type of logic model that the authors characterize as obsolete.

In other words, the complexity on the ground—and most relevant to a philanthropist seeking the best ways to leverage its resources to support outcomes that matter for people—is not the complexity of the problem itself, but the reality of the situation. Truth be told, I can’t imagine what it would look like to come to this table advocating for the use of emergent strategy and a systems map.

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