Giving Compass' Take:

• Alexandre Mars, a French entrepreneur, created an impact-giving website called Epic Foundation.  The company extensively vets youth-focused organizations and provides information on the progress of each organizations' impact for donors to track. 

• Why is it important for donors to have resources that provide research and data to support impact? How can these resources collaborate and share information to make the process even better for donors? 

• Here are some suggestions for eager donors to understand their giving habits. 

Here’s a question: How much money did you give away last year? Here’s a better question: Why didn’t you give more? The answer to the second question, according to Alexandre Mars, the French entrepreneur turned philanthropist, is threefold: a lack of knowledge (about where to give), a lack of trust (that the money would be put to good use), and a lack of time (to figure it all out).

Having amassed his own considerable fortune, first in technology and then in venture capital, the 43-year-old Mars is employing those tools and that business mindset in his philanthropic pursuits. Enter Epic Foundation. Since its launch in 2014, Epic has grown to represent three dozen youth-focused organizations in seven parts of the world, from the U.S. to Hong Kong, from Brazil to India.

With a vigorous vetting process and monthly reporting, Epic feels more like a venture capital fund than a group of like-minded charities. Each year Mars and his team spend several months narrowing the applicant pool of thousands of charitable organizations, looking at 15 factors in each of three stages, which yields 45 data points. They then do intensive research on, and site visits to, the finalists. In 2017, out of 3,500 applications analyzed, only eight made the cut.

Donors can sign up on Epic’s website and track their ROI, as it were, via detailed status reports

Mars is covering Epic’s overhead himself, including salaries for 30 employees in six offices worldwide. He estimates that he will spend roughly $50 million of his own money in the foundation’s first decade, making it possible for all donated funds to go to Epic’s affiliated organizations.

In classic investor fashion, Mars says he is waiting to see what his multiple will be—five times his investment, perhaps more—but the real goal he has set for himself is far less quantifiable: to make giving the norm.

Read the full article on Epic Foundation by Elizabeth Holmes at Town & Country.