Three Ways to Give More Effectively

How Innovative Finance Can Spur Nonprofit Solutions [Audio]

Giving Compass' Take: • In this podcast from The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Georgia Levenson Keohane — author of "Capital and the Common Good" — advocates for the use of time-tested financial tools in innovative ways (rather than fancy new fintech). • How many nonprofits are taking a look at ways to make solutions more affordable rather than innovate for innovation's sake? This would be a good time to step back and examine investment strategies. • Thinking on these topics can go a long way toward global economic stability. Here's why. In dealing with the world’s immediate and intractable social and environmental problems, Georgia Levenson Keohane doesn’t necessarily think the answer is more capital but smarter capital. Borrowing from ideas from private finance can lead to better decisions, vast improvements in long-term solutions, and significant returns on investment, she says. Enter pay-as-you-go financing, and people now have the option of paying in increments for something that otherwise would be unaffordable. Ms. Keohane emphasizes that using the tools of finance for the common good will continue to rely on progressive public-private partnerships over any single policy. I do think secondly that there have been in the last generation—my first book touched on this—a real shift in mindset across the sector– so certainly nonprofit sector; I think in the public sector, but also in the private sector. So in the financial services community, at large corporates where people I think are really understanding that business is a very powerful tool and engine for social change. People who work for large banks or people who work for large companies really now have the expectation that those entities they work for have a responsibility and a mandate to also do good in the world. Listen to the podcast about innovative finance for nonprofits by Denver Frederick at The Chronicle of Philanthropy.