Philanthropy Idea

by Michael Keane

There are many reasons to give and be philanthropic. Maybe it is ingrained in you as a personal habit. Maybe you don't have access to being philanthropic during your work days. Maybe there is a cause close to you as a person because of family and friends.

Recently, Jeff Bezos sent a tweet requesting ideas on how to improve philanthropy. My thinking is that a shift in how value is shown to donors could be improved. This post is my response to his request. 

Way back when, a researcher named Dr. John Landers was able to garner some funding to fight ALS through the Water Bucket Challenge (Washington Post story here). He was able to find a gene breakthrough and received some major news coverage and extra funding for it. The link to our blog post about is here. There is also the X Prize series where there is a monetary and other material value prizes awarded to winners of challenges. It seems that this is an area where philanthropy could benefit. It needs to happen more.

Some issues with this include the unspoken secrecy that goes on with philanthropy. Organizations are regularly very protective of their funding and bypass certain opportunities in order to keep that funding stable. This seems to be short sighted. Also, patience in terms of success in finding cures or alleviating issues is required and sometimes tough to digest in the short term. There is a lot of little failures before the big success and that can take a toll on those who give.

That is why promotion of successful processes within the philanthropic community is so important. It will keep the focus going and create new opportunities when that success in funding a philanthropic adventure is created.

So the idea is this. Promote successes through action. Actions include social media posts, news media, etc. Drive down in the promotion to include as many as possible who spent time and resources contributing to the success (donors, organizers, researchers, etc.). The more the merrier. Focus the messaging on unsuccessful research should be formulated as learning experiences, not failure. Sometimes learning that something doesn't works saves resources and time in the end.

More promotions should equal more success.

Thank you! 

Good luck to all!