Philanthropy & Funding
Billionaires Can Build by Supporting Dedicated Changemakers
A response to SSIR’s Summer 2026 cover essay.
A response to SSIR’s Summer 2026 cover essay.
The United States is living through a second Gilded Age. But unlike yesterday's magnates, today's billionaires prefer to write checks to existing organizations. They should instead build institutions that last.
Grant writing is the bridge between vision and resources. Until funders invest in it, grassroots organizations will remain underfunded.
A year of turbulence has exposed the dangers of philanthropic monocultures and upended assumptions about impact, effectiveness, and scale. Embracing the varied intentions that motivate people to give offers a more resilient, pluralistic path forward.
How an excessive focus on methods has distracted attention from the more fundamental challenge of building rigor and learning overall.
Philanthropy's role in Minneapolis must be to build for after the current crisis passes.
How we developed a new benchmark to shift philanthropic norms
There is philanthropic investing, and there is commercial investing, and there is nothing in between.
A new toolkit to reinforce and reinvent American research science in a time of crisis.
Now is the time for funders to back local leaders who are making lasting improvements to people's lives and the systems that shape them, even amidst global disruption.