The Empire State Building is one of the seven modern wonders of the world. Yet when it was built, the most revolutionary aspect wasn’t its architecture or the height. The less-acclaimed, quantum leap was in the construction practices that the contractor, Starrett Brothers and Eken, used. Never before had a building been constructed in that way or as quickly.

In philanthropy today, we are doing some good “architectural” work in emergent philanthropy, networks, and collective impact, to name a few. But to achieve a breakthrough like the Empire State Building, we need to fundamentally change the underlying practices we use to reconstruct our philanthropy, just as radically as Starrett Brothers and Eken did.

 

If we want to make sure that funds go toward an intended social outcome, we must make an agreement on the mutual outcome and let grantees decide how to best spend the funds (the means) to achieve that goal (the end). Unrestricted absolutely does not imply unaccountability. If you’re worried that grantees might misspend funds, and if you can’t trust them, don’t make the grant in the first place. If you need to justify to your board where and how the grantee is spending funds, you need to get them to understand that QDDs ultimately have a debilitating effect on the mission.

Read the full article by Paul Shoemaker about reconstructing philanthropy on the Full Cost Project