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Philanthropy is highly competitive. At the 2010 World AIDS Conference in México City, I asked a presenter from a large NGO if his organization tried to improve the overall results in diminishing the impact of AIDS in South Africa by sharing their goals and strategies with other NGOs working in the same space. His answer shocked me: “No, of course not; we can’t share our plans with our competitors.” Many foundations and NGOs compete just as aggressively as for profit enterprises for publicity and donations.

Locally driven philanthropy works best. In the early childhood arena, we know that when the curriculum is ­driven by the children it is much more effective than when it is driven by adults. The same is true in the world of philanthropy. Over the years, members of the World Forum community have shared numerous stories of large and small NGOs moving into communities and building schools, wells, and latrines without consulting the end users, with the result that facilities are never used nor maintained. On the other hand, at the Nexus Summit we were presented with many examples of philanthropists and social entrepreneurs who start their work by engaging the local leaders and experts, with dramatic positive results.

Impact investing has its limits. When I was invited to attend the Clinton Global Initiative in 2009, I found myself at a table of investment bankers from around the world, all of whom had been entrusted with hundreds of millions of dollars to invest in double bottom-line projects. However, they were all frustrated by the fact that, beyond micro-loan programs, they were unable to find many projects that accomplished good and made a profit.

At one session at the Nexus Summit the presenters asked participants to write a brief description of their pet projects and then to post them on a continuum of projects requiring a 100% philanthropic contribution (no resulting profits) to projects spinning off large profits. The result was that 90% of the projects fell in the 100% philanthropic end of the ­spectrum. Martin Fisher, the founder of Kickstart International, used this to demonstrate that in dealing with most serious challenges,there is not going to be a profitable result for many years, if ever. He expressed the fear that with the high popularity of impact investing, money will be gravitating from philanthropic pockets to impact investing pockets, shortchanging many critical projects.

Grassroots organizations and causes often operate under the radar. Many grassroots organizations are becoming savvy at getting their stories in front of investors, but the vast majority of organizations doing really great work with limited resources remain invisible to the holders of wealth. Likewise, while social entrepreneurs are taking a bite out of highly-visible challenges, many of the challenges facing the youngest children are not so obvious: providing educational and health services at the same time, providing services to children impacted by AIDS, and providing safety for children in zones of violence and conflict.

With this last challenge in mind, the World Forum Foundation has made a commitment to work with the Nexus Global Youth Summit to find ways to connect their wealthy, talented, and committed members with the readers
of Exchange and the members of the World Forum community. Together, with a shared vision, we can hopefully work together in ways that redefine the next generation of philantrohopic and non profit work. Let’s begin the story.

BOX #1:
Traditional Sources of Philanthropy

Not significantly represented at the Nexus Summit were five traditional players in the philanthropic world:

International quasi-governmental bodies such as UNICEF, UNESCO, the World Bank, and the World Health Organization. These organizations get their mandate and their funding from multinational covenants. They work primarily through national governments.

National governments �" primarily members of the G20, that set aside part of their national budgets for foreign aid (sometimes in the form of military aid, but also significant aid for challenges of health, education, poverty, and infrastructure). Nations do this because they may believe it is the right thing to do, but also sometimes to win the support of the powers that be in the nations receiving aid.

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