Given that most nonprofits are quite small, it makes sense to me that good grantmakers should not get lost in metrics and instead need to find projects that have vision and appear to have a model to implement it.

Albert, I think your point that the people involved are critical is key and backed-up by the same thing being true in small for-profit companies.

But - really - would it have taken an “inspired” grantmaker to support the work early on? If the predominant mindset were not so focused on removing most of the risk before making an investment & demanding quantitative measures of progress - indeed, if the predominant mindset were to have a comfort level with investing in a certain percentage of leaders and ideas that a grantmaker presumes might fail - then it might have taken a grantmaker just doing a good job. We like to call philanthropy “social venture capital,” but I fear that we view our risk portfolio very differently than a venture capitalist does, since s/he will figure in losses at the outset as the cost of doing business.

I’m also concerned whether today’s grantmakers would stay in it for the long haul. Halfway through a community-building initiative, when issues are exposed and contradictory positions seem even more entrenched - e.g., the potential polarization of a local school board when attempting to address the racial achievement gap - or halfway through an advocacy movement where progress seems messy or halting at best, would foundations stay the course? Those may be the exact points at which the real work is starting to get done, but they are the points at which - at least on the surface - the situation can seem least fruitful.

Tidy Sum has it right. Business people are not obsessively quantitative. Metrics and stats are used, but at the end of the day everyone asks “Is this making money”? Nobody is going to be happy trying to move “gross margin”, or “R&D spending” or “average revenue per unit” in isolation. Everyone just wants to make money.

Philanthropy should use metrics, but at the end of the say ask “Is this having an impact”? Who cares about “DALYs” in isolation. You’ll run a company into the ground if you focus on metrics and ignore whether you’re making money. Unfortunately you won’t run a funding program into the ground by making the same mistake.

As a funder, I often see how the focus on the wrong metrics often constipate the thinking of organizations and obscure their true accomplishments.

When I work with foundation trustees and donors often use metrics as cover, use them to squash debate, use them in horse-trading, and use them along with grunting and chest beating as primitive demonstrations of power, authority, and expertise.

Philanthropy 2.0 or Guerrilla Philanthropy take you choice.

I didn’t understand about 99% of what you were talking about but here is my guess. You mean to say that there are rich people out there that want to give their money to help cure social ills but are sick to death of the administrators of these projects first skimming about $150K off the top so they can ride around in a new BMW and pay for a condo for their mistress? Then not really curing the problem they were hired to cure? Is that about it?
Ok, then I direct the author of this blog and anyone that reads it to do something about it.
Contact those frustrated old fashioned red tape laden philanthropists you are talking about and introduce them to, The Benefactor Project.com
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1. A Million Dollars.
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That’s all you need to give away the same $8 or $9 Billion Dollars. If you want me to run it then call me.
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founder
The Benefactor Project
my cell # is 434-709-6484
my email addy is tcanavan@aol.com
my website addy is http://www.thebenefactorproject.com