John V. Kania - Do More Than Give: The Six Practices of Donors Who Change the World

Copyright 2011 by Leslie R. Crutchfield and FSG Social Impact Advisors. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Crutchfield, Leslie R., 1968

Do more than give : the six practices of donors who change the world / Leslie R. Crutchfield, John V. Kania, and Mark R. Kramer.

p. cm.(J-b us non-franchise leadership ; 390)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-470-89144-5 (hardback)

1. Charities. 2. Charitable uses, trusts, and foundations. 3. Endowments. 4. Fund raising. 5. Social change. I. Kania, John V. II. Kramer, Mark R. III. Title.

HV40.C78 2011

361.7dc222010053644

For Caleigh and Quinn

For Nate, Lucy, and Mia

For Toby, Elizabeth, and Benjamin

Preface

When the three of us joined together to coauthor this book, we each brought different life experiences and professional training to the project. What has united us is our urgency to find ways to make faster progress toward solving the pressing social and environmental problems that persist in the world and our shared belief that philanthropy has much to contribute to those solutions. Although countless books have been written about the difference donors and nonprofits have made in causes both local and globaladvancements in understanding that we applaud and from which we have learnedwe believe that donors can do even more.

For Mark, growing up in a family with a small private foundation awakened him to the idea that philanthropy could do more. He saw how isolated most family foundations were. He observed that much money could be given to hard-working nonprofits year after year with the very best of intentions but without changing much of anything. He often saw foundations that were convinced of their uniqueness and unable to learn from others' experiences. He observed family foundations that were determined to avoid overhead expense and as a result were perpetually short staffed. And he saw foundations that struggled to meet their 5 percent payout requirementin an era when real-world needs were growing and problems were crying out for answers.

This ironythat in the face of such vast need some foundations could barely find ways to make the minimum contribution required to maintain their tax-exempt statuspersuaded Mark that the system just wasn't working. These experiences formed the basis for his lifelong commitment to understanding how philanthropy's performance could be improved. In 1999, he and his friend Michael Porter established the Center for Effective Philanthropy to help define and advance foundation effectiveness, and at the same time they cofounded the consulting firm Foundation Strategy Group (FSG) to work in depth with leaders of foundations to develop and pursue effective strategies for social change. (At its founding in 1999, the consulting firm was called Foundation Strategy Group [FSG]. The firm later officially changed its name to FSG, so later in the book, we refer to it as FSG.) In 2009, Mark crystallized many of the lessons he had learned from his decade of work at FSG in Catalytic Philanthropy, an article published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review ( SSIR ).

When that edition of SSIR landed in her mailbox, Leslie was preparing to write her next book. Her first book, Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits , coauthored with Heather McLeod Grant, had been released in 2007. During the subsequent three years Leslie had been traveling across the United States and Canada, speaking to groups of nonprofit and philanthropic leaders about how they could achieve better outcomes if they focused on advancing larger causes and leveraging change through each sector of societygovernment, business, nonprofit organizations, and individualsrather than just shoring up their own institutions. She also was advising family foundations on how to increase the impact of their giving. The more Leslie interacted with foundation leaders, the more intrigued she became with the role that philanthropy plays in creatingand sometimes holding backsocial change. So she decided to write a book about applying the practices in Forces for Good to philanthropy.

At first, Leslie thought the best advice she could give donors was to use the six practices of high-impact nonprofits as a screen to guide their giving. If foundations channeled more of their funds to nonprofits that employed cross-sector approaches such as advocating for policy change or partnering with private enterprise to advance social objectives, she reasoned, they could get more bang for their charitable dollar. But she soon realized that just picking great grantees wasn't enough. She knew that donors could do more. They could fund groups that advocate, but donors were also uniquely qualified to engage in advocacy and to raise their voices on behalf of causes. Donors could support nonprofits that partner with business, but they could also leverage their business connections and know-how to advance causes.

Initially, Leslie didn't know of many good examples of this kind of giving. Then she read Mark's article on catalytic philanthropy. This is it! Leslie thought, this is what high-impact philanthropy looks like. Catalytic donors do the same things that the social entrepreneurs in Forces for Good do, they just start with a concentration of wealth rather than raising funds from scratch. So she asked Mark and also FSG managing director John Kania if they would like to team up and collaborate on this book.