Philanthropy is often drawn to what can be seen.
A new programme opens. A defined number of people receive support. A donor can point to something tangible and understand what her contribution has made possible.
There is real value in this. Immediate needs are not made less important because they are visible, and a well-run programme can improve lives in ways that are both direct and profound.
The difficulty begins when visibility is mistaken for effectiveness.
Some of the work on which progress depends is harder to isolate. It may involve strengthening an organisation, building trust within a community, changing a policy, improving collaboration or learning why an established approach is not working. The eventual result may be significant, but no single grant, donor or organisation can credibly claim it as their own.
How, then, should a philanthropist think about contribution when the most persuasive evidence may take time to emerge?
What visibility can conceal
Visible activity is reassuring partly because it appears to create a clear line between money and result. Fund this programme and these services will be delivered. Support this building and there will be something concrete to show for
it.
But even the most tangible programme depends on less visible foundations: capable leadership, trained staff, sound financial management, technology, safeguarding and the ability to learn. These are sometimes described as overheads, as though they sit apart from the work. In reality, they make the work possible.
Bridgespan’s research on the true costs of nonprofit organisations makes this point clearly. Recruitment, technology infrastructure and training are not peripheral expenses. They affect an organisation’s ability to deliver its programmes well.
This does not mean that every donor should provide unrestricted funding in every circumstance. Restrictions may be appropriate where money has been raised for a defined purpose or where a donor and charity have agreed a specific piece of work. The more important question is whether the funding arrangement reflects what the work genuinely costs and what the organisation needs to succeed.
A beautifully presented project can still be fragile if nobody is willing to support the organisation beneath it.
Lasting change is rarely the work of one actor
The distinction between visible and less visible giving becomes more difficult when philanthropy seeks to influence a wider system.
Consider a donor concerned about educational disadvantage. She might fund tutoring for a defined group of children and see near-term evidence of participation and progress. She might also support teacher development, parent advocacy, research, collaboration between local organisations or work to change public policy. These approaches operate at different levels and on different timescales. They are not interchangeable, and neither should automatically be treated as the more ambitious choice.
The tutoring may meet a need that cannot responsibly be deferred. The policy work may alter the conditions that repeatedly create that need. Strong philanthropy can hold both in view.
What changes is the expectation of proof. As Stanford Social Innovation Review has argued in its work on systems change, progress in a system depends on many connected actors. A funder’s insistence on attributing the result to one
grant can work against the collaboration the issue requires.
This calls for discipline, not lowered standards. Donors should still ask what an organisation is trying to change, why its approach is credible and how it will recognise progress. But the language may need to shift from “What did my
funding cause?” to “What did this work contribute, and what are we learning?”
That is a more honest question. It can also be a more useful one.
Whose view of progress counts?
There is another reason to look beyond what is easily presented to a donor.
Measures of success are not neutral. They reflect choices about what matters, whose experience is recognised and how quickly a result is expected to appear. A funder may value the number of people reached. A charity may know that the
quality and continuity of a smaller service matter more. Community members may identify a change in trust, confidence or access that is important but difficult to capture in a conventional report.
The answer is not to abandon measurement in favour of intuition. It is to examine what the measures reveal, what they leave out and who has helped to define them.
This is also where the form of funding matters. The Centre for Effective Philanthropy’s research with nonprofit leaders found that they wanted major donors to provide more multiyear commitments, unrestricted gifts and support beyond money. These forms of support can give organisations greater scope to plan, adapt and invest in what they know is needed.
For a donor, allowing that scope can feel less certain than commissioning a tightly specified activity. It involves a transfer not only of money, but of some decision-making authority. The organisation is being trusted to apply knowledge that the donor may not possess.
That trust should be informed rather than unquestioning. Good governance, open communication and proportionate accountability still matter. Yet if a donor asks an organisation to respond to a complex reality while prescribing every step in advance, she may limit the very judgement she is seeking to fund.
A broader understanding of contribution
Looking beyond visible giving does not require every philanthropist to pursue systems change, nor does it diminish the value of direct support. The choice is not between helping someone now and changing the conditions that affect them
over time.
The more useful task is to understand how different forms of giving relate to one another.
A direct service can reveal where a system is failing. Research can make that pattern visible. Advocacy can press for change. Flexible, long-term funding can give an organisation the resilience to pursue all three while continuing to meet
immediate need.
Seen in this way, lasting change is not a single category of grant. It is a perspective from which a donor asks better questions:
What has to be sustained behind the visible activity?
Which changes will take longer than a normal funding cycle?
Who else is contributing, and where might collaboration matter?
Whose knowledge should shape the definition of progress?
Am I seeking evidence of meaningful contribution, or reassurance that I can claim the result?
These questions may not produce the simplicity of a neat line from donation to outcome. Philanthropy rarely offers that simplicity without leaving something important out.
The aim is not to make giving less tangible. It is to see more clearly what tangible results depend upon, and to support the people, relationships and organisations that allow progress to endure.
A new programme opens. A defined number of people receive support. A donor can point to something tangible and understand what her contribution has made possible.
There is real value in this. Immediate needs are not made less important because
they are visible, and a well-run programme can improve lives in ways that are
both direct and profound.
The difficulty begins when visibility is mistaken for effectiveness.
Some of the work on which progress depends is harder to isolate. It may involve
strengthening an organisation, building trust within a community, changing a
policy, improving collaboration or learning why an established approach is not
working. The eventual result may be significant, but no single grant, donor or
organisation can credibly claim it as their own.
How, then, should a philanthropist think about contribution when the most
persuasive evidence may take time to emerge?
