Effective Guide to PhilanthropyFor many donors, their giving journey starts and evolves in a similar way. It begins with giving to their alma maters, children’s schools, friend’s causes, and religious institutions. As their income increases, their professional expertise expands, and they settle into more predictable life routines, they become more and more charitable. And then one day they realize they’re giving away tens of thousands of dollars without really thinking about it! Does this sound familiar?

At The Effective Philanthropy Learning Initiative (EPLI) at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (PACS), we’ve observed this trajectory. It describes what we call an emerging, high-capacity donor: A donor with increasing wealth who is on the cusp of moving from reactive to strategic philanthropy. These donors often have a ton of questions and are eager to learn how they can become more thoughtful in their giving. This is why we decided to write a book to support donors at this stage.

Built on the principles and practices of effective philanthropy, the Guide to Effective Philanthropy is a DIY resource that walks emerging, high-capacity donors through the components of strategic philanthropy.

What is effective philanthropy? Effective philanthropists go beyond just writing checks. They want to do more and do philanthropy better. They are looking to engage in sustained, significant support for organizations that align with their goals.

  1. Effective philanthropists are thoughtful: Willing to undertake a thorough decision-making process and do their homework on organizations and issues.
  2. They anchor their giving in clearly stated personal values and goals with a defined focus.
  3. They are ready to support organizations and issues over the long term, ideally with unrestricted gifts.
  4. They maintain a beginner’s mindset and are willing to learn from others: Peers, experts, nonprofit leaders. They learn and evolve alongside their grantees.
  5. Lastly, they do their research and conduct due diligence, but then ultimately trust their grantees. They aren’t obsessed with tracking how an organization spends their every penny, but rather they keep their eyes on the prize – and just need to know whether the organizations and leaders they invest in are moving the dial on the issues they care about.

Part one on developing your plan for giving includes (1) finding your focus, (2) involving family, (3) learning about philanthropy with and from others, (4) giving vehicles, (5) understanding problems, causes, and approaches to solutions, and (6) theory of change, monitoring, and evaluation.

Part two, implementing your plan, includes (7) finding effective organizations, (8) due diligence, (9) developing relationships with nonprofits, (10) making gifts, (11) funding with others, and (12) socially-motivated investing.

Each chapter provides fairly detailed information about why the topic is important, what to think about, and how you might craft your own strategy with these tips and recommendations in mind. In many cases, chapters include hands-on activities to push donors toward action. There are also handy charts and checklists for things like comparing giving vehicles and a list of questions to consider answering when conducting due diligence on a nonprofit.

Sprinkled throughout the resource, you will also find donor stories which illustrate many of the theories and recommended practices as experienced by actual donors.

While donors can pick up the Guide and read it from cover to cover, we equally recommend that donors skip around to topics of particular interest. Your charitable giving practices will evolve over time and you might wish to do a deep-dive in one area before building out your entire plan.

We are including some useful nuggets from the Guide on Giving Compass:

  1. We invite you to read through the compiled donor stories for inspiration from fellow givers. Have your own donor story to share? We’d love to hear from you! Share your story here.
  2. If you’re ready to, consider learning more about different strategies for finding effective charities that align with your goals. 
  3. If that’s too overwhelming, consider the shortcut of pooling your resources with other donors to support causes and other charitable endeavors. 

We hope you find some valuable tidbits among these resources as you craft and refine your own process.

We invite you to download your free digital copy of the Guide here.

If you’d like to talk to us and tell us some of your stories about giving, drop us a line. Contact-epli@stanford.edu