The world around philanthropy is changing much, much faster than philanthropy itself. An intimidating range of forces--globalization, shifting sectoral roles, economic crisis, and new technologies--are changing both what philanthropy is called upon to do, and how donors and foundations will accomplish their work in the future. For philanthropic and civic leaders looking to cultivate change in today's rapidly shifting landscape, simply tweaking the status quo won't be enough. Funders will have to pioneer "next practices"--effective approaches that are well-suited to tomorrow's more networked, dynamic, and interdependent context.

With this in mind, Monitor Institute is pleased to announce the publication of What's Next for Philanthropy: Acting Bigger and Adapting Better in a Networked World. The piece updates our 2005 report, Looking Out for the Future, and represents more than a decade of work by the Institute in exploring the evolving "future of philanthropy." It highlights the changing context in which funders now operate, and identifies ten emerging next practices that can help funders of all sorts increase their impact over the coming decade.

Funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, What's Next for Philanthropy argues that while the cutting edge of philanthropic innovation over the last decade has been mostly about improving the effectiveness, efficiency, and responsiveness of individual organizations, the next practices of the coming 10 years will have to build on those efforts to include an additional focus on coordination and adaption--acting bigger and adapting better.

To apply these approaches in your own organization and philanthropic efforts, use any of the links on the left to download the report or its accompanying do-it-yourself innovation toolkit.

What makes great nonprofits great? Not large budgets. Not snazzy marketing. Not perfect management. The answer is not what you might think.

Leslie Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant spent four years surveying thousands of nonprofit CEOs, conducting hundreds of interviews, and studying 12 high-impact nonprofits to uncover their secrets to success. Their quest took them to the well-known (Habitat for Humanity), to the less-well-known (Self-Help) and to the unexpected (The Exploratorium). What the authors discovered surprised them, and is revealed in the original best-selling edition of Forces for Good published in 2007.

This revised and updated edition contains new chapters that explore how the original 12 great nonprofits have thrived during tumultuous times, and how local and smaller organizations can apply the "six practices" to achieve greater impact in their own local communities.

Whether you're a nonprofit leader, a philanthropist, a business executive, a donor, a volunteer, a board member -- or simply interested in learning how to be a force for good -- you'll find something that inspires you to be an even more effective catalyst for lasting social change.

You can read the book's central argument in the authors' original article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. For a summary of their recent additions, see Local Forces for Good, published in the Summer 2012 edition, and Seizing a Crisis: Lessons for Growing in Turbulent Times, published in The Chronicle of Philanthropy in May 2012.

There is growing interest in the role of market-based solutions in addressing the problems of poverty, through inclusive businesses that tap into the potential of the global poor as customers and suppliers—the so-called 'fortune at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP).' Encouraged by the growth of microfinance, many promising new models are emerging. This has elicited a rush to the new field of 'impact investing'—producing social or environmental good as well as financial return—with hundreds of funds set up in just a few years and billions of dollars waiting to be invested.

But many investors report that they are struggling to find good opportunities in which to invest for impact. Why is that? Will impact investors really be able to take new models for inclusive business all the way from idea to scale? Meanwhile, philanthropic and aid funders are asking how they should engage with these market-based solutions. How should they harness the full potential of this early experimentation? If impact capital is the key to scaling these solutions, what then is the role of philanthropy?

Our research paints a clear picture: impact capital alone will not unlock the potential of impact investing for the global poor. Because of the extreme challenges facing those who are pioneering new models for inclusive business, truly realizing the impact in impact investing will require more, not less, philanthropy, and will need that philanthropic support to be delivered in new ways.

This report:

• Explains how impact investing is constrained by the tough realities of inclusive business, and introduces the phenomenon of the pioneer gap
• Describes the emerging practice of enterprise philanthropy, and how it is the key to establishing the inclusive business models into which capital can then be deployed
• Analyzes a number of companies from the Acumen Fund portfolio to understand both successes and setbacks, and to illustrate the Four Ps of effective enterprise philanthropy
• Sets out our key recommendations for philanthropic funders and for impact investors
• Provides some practical ideas for what and how to fund, in the Enterprise Philanthropy Playbook

If you would like to further discuss the themes described in the report or provide feedback, please write to the team at inclusivemarkets@monitor.com.

The United States’ single greatest collective investment in human capital—and in its future generations—is public education. Yet today that investment is generating very poor returns for low-income students.

Members of the lowest-income U.S. families are 10 times less likely to earn a bachelor’s degree than members of the highest-income families. This situation would be troubling in any environment, but with income inequality only increasing and global job competitiveness intensifying every year, it is downright dangerous—not just for low-income students but for society at large. While a field-level conversation about the college access, persistence, and completion challenges that face low-income students has been slow in coming, we believe that conversation is now imperative.

This report outlines the problem, the state of the field, and how to collectively intensify the ways we address these pressing challenges:

1. Improve coordination between key actors: between high schools and colleges, within the college community, among nonprofit organizations, and between actors in the field and parents/communities
2. Create clarity around metrics—and what drives successful outcomes
3. Look beyond the traditional definition of “student”

To find out more, read the full report.

Funders know they need big platforms with diverse players to tackle the complexity of 21st-century problems. They also know that to do this work well they need to act as conveners, champions and matchmakers, connecting people, ideas and resources - in addition to getting money out the door. This means investing in more than discrete programs and more than individual organizations. It means catalyzing networks.

While grantmakers have deep experience cultivating networks of all kinds - such as coalitions, alliances, place-based initiatives, learning communities - there are few recognized best practices or established measures to prove they've achieved "network effectiveness" and 21st-century approaches to catalyzing networks are still being invented.

There is still much to learn, but this guide is an early attempt to create a rough map for the many individuals and foundations that are catalyzing networks in order to build and boost the impact of their philanthropy.

Given the scale and complexity of the challenges they face, foundations increasingly need to look beyond their organizations to other stakeholders--both in philanthropy and across sectors--to mobilize sufficient resources and effort to move the needle on pressing social problems. Yet working together remains a challenge: simply knowing what other funders are supporting can require time-consuming research, meetings, and calls.

As one foundation executive recently explained, "When funders come together for a day to talk about an issue, we spend 80 percent of the time talking about what we do, which leaves us with only 20 percent of the day to discuss what we could and should do in the future."

The Strategy Landscape™, created by Monitor Institute and delivered with the Center for Effective Philanthropy, aims to turn this ratio on its head. Developed with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Landscape is an online, interactive data visualization tool that makes it easy for users to see and understand patterns of grantmaking and strategies across multiple funders. Participants are able to see and develop a shared understanding of the larger funding landscape that they are a part of, and to recognize their position within that ecosystem. More specifically, the tool can help:

• Compile in one place and make easily accessible information about the grants and programmatic strategies of multiple funders
• Graphically represent the distribution and relative scale of grantmaking within and across foundations, grantees, geographies, outcomes, and strategies, while allowing for easy maneuverability between these different viewpoints
• Allow groups of funders to understand how the work of different institutions is aligned across various strategies, highlighting critical overlaps and gaps in support across foundations
• Support individual institutions or groups of funders in developing strategy with a better understanding of how they fit into the ecosystem of activity around them, thus helping to identify new opportunities for coordination and collaboration

The initial prototype of the Strategy Landscape™ was completed in early 2010, and illustrates grantmaking related to climate change by more than a dozen funders. Over the next 12-18 months, Monitor Institute will continue to expand the climate change Strategy Landscape™. At the same time, Monitor Institute and the Center for Effective Philanthropy will be working with interested funders to develop Strategy Landscapes™ of additional issues/locations to pilot test the visualization tool further.

Experience a demonstration of the Strategy Landscape™ for yourself
Please note that the data appearing in this map is purely illustrative. While the taxonomy of strategies and geographic areas of activity are real, the data is not real and is associated with fictitious foundations and foundation strategies. This "dummy data" is intended only to provide a sense of the tool's functionality, not for analysis of any climate change related grantmaking or foundation strategies.

This report shares the field-level insights that Hillel learned from an innovative program that leveraged peer networks and relationships to help it achieve its goal of doubling the number of Jewish students who are involved in Jewish life and who have meaningful Jewish experiences. Piloted at 10 colleges, Hillel’s Senior Jewish Educators and Campus Entrepreneurs Initiative recruited and trained student interns to engage their campus peers in Jewish conversation and activities; it also featured “Jewish educators” whose role was to help stimulate deeper learning and growth among students interested in exploring their Judaism.

For six years, the RE-AMP network—comprising 125 nonprofits and funders across eight states in the U.S.'s upper Midwest—has been focused on just one audacious goal: reducing regional global warming emissions 80 percent (from 2005 levels) by 2050. And it's working.

Much has been written about the power of networks to increase social impact. For nonprofits and funders that want to go deeper on the tactics of how to build an effective network, it is useful to understand how RE-AMP has done it. RE-AMP's process was well informed by decades of thinking related to systems dynamics and group facilitation. But what is new is the way in which RE-AMP combined these "best practices" with "next practices" to create a robust, resilient, and high-impact network.

The results speak for themselves. In just the past few years, the network has helped legislators pass energy efficiency policies in six states; promoted one of the most rigorous cap-and-trade programs in the nation; and, halted the development of 28 new coal plants. The network has also built the capacity of regional activists, increased funding for its cause, created a number of shared resources, and developed stronger relationships between funders and nonprofits.

Understanding just how RE-AMP accomplished this can give other groups interested in building a collective network to address a systems-level problem a roadmap to follow. During its two-month study of RE-AMP, Monitor Institute identified six key principles that RE-AMP members followed in building their network:

1. Start by understanding the system you are trying to change.
2. Involve both funders and nonprofits as equals from the outset.
3. Design for a network, not an organization—and invest in collective infrastructure.
4. Cultivate leadership at many levels.
5. Create multiple opportunities to connect and communicate.
6. Remain adaptive and emergent—and committed to a long-term vision.

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