Stanford Social Innovation Review

Since 1970, more than 200,000 nonprofits have opened in the U.S., but only 144 have reached $50 million in annual revenue. They got big by doing two things: They raised the bulk of their money from a single type of funder. And just as importantly, these nonprofits created professional organizations that were tailored to the needs of their primary funding sources.

Greenlight is a nonprofit catalyst: It identifes a local need, scours the country for the best program to meet it, and then establishes a chapter in its hometown.

The Public Radio Fund gives investors a chance to protect nonprofit airwaves. With its help, KTOO-FM in Juneau, Alaska, recently debuted a 24-hour news show and two locally-hosted Alaska-flavored music stations. 

SSIR Managing Editor Eric Nee met with Emmett Carson to discuss his bold plans for the newly merged Silicon Valley Community Foundation, which is now the fourth largest community foundation in the country.

Human-caused climate change, sharply declining conventional energy sources, and population growth are threatening the very platform of human life. Yet only 5 percent of U.S. foundation spending goes to the environment, and a paltry 2.9 percent goes to science and technology.

A growing number of foundations are offering low-interest loans, buying into green business ventures, and investing in other asset classes to advance their missions. To bring about real change, foundations need to make strategic mission investments that complement their grantmaking and leverage market forces.

To ensure that baby boomers’ wealth does not fall short of its philanthropic potential, Randall Ottinger suggests applying portfolio theory to make wiser social investments.

In the for-profit world, the term “investment” has clear meaning and investors have sophisticated techniques for spotting and growing the most promising companies. Yet foundations and other nonprofit donors have not developed similar clarity or approaches. As a result, the nonprofit sector’s greatest gems often languish well below their full potential. By better translating for-profit concepts, donors can learn how to scout out and grow the best nonprofits. Likewise, certain nonprofits can take a page from business’s playbook and learn how to attract cash for expansion.

Foundation payout rates and the time value of money.

President of the Ford Foundation.

Artists for Humanity students are also employees.

Managing the collaboration portfolio.

Breaking down the firewall between foundation
investments and programming.

Social movement and grassroots organizations left in the cold.

CEO of the American Cancer Society.

For Manna, the path to affordable housing runs though a peer-support club.

A theater ensemble transforms into a company with a bottom line.

Charitable donors should think of themselves as “investors” – and should expect returns, just like a stock market investor would. But too often, givers don’t see themselves this way, contributing to an inefficient “social capital market.”

How a nonprofit spurred the Indian government to help seniors.

Where the charitable response to 9/11 went wrong.