Gift Hub: Is High Impact Philanthropy an Insult?

Wildwoman, drawing on her experiences in the slums of Jakarta, on High Impact Philanthropy,

So, it says that they try to educate themselves, but it’s basically a bunch of rich people sitting in a room deciding that the little nonprofits and the people they serve do not know how to solve their issues. So instead, people with no experience in the field will solve their problem for them. They will make “high impact” giving a priority, giving in one particular area, to solve something they deem a priority.

It occurs to me that instead of letting a bunch of people removed from the problem take their theory of giving into their own hands, we might be better served if people receiving services, nonprofits and government worked more hand in hand, forging collaborations and best practices across the nation, sharing ideas, and forging goals collectively, instead of donors forging the goals.

My sense, Wildwoman, is that it is better, from a major gift fundraising perspective, to insult the intelligence of the poor than to offend the amour propre of the rich. The poor will take what they get, and show their gratitude, and get "results," or they will be passed over in the next funding cycle for a higher performing group of poor people. The rich have options. As a donor centered philanthropic coach my role is to be of service to those who matter most. Through High Impact Philanthropy through High Performing Nonprofits, my Hyperagent clients can dramatize their genius, posit and create the world we want (according to them), and save capitalism. Who am I to begrudge them their obscene fantasy? I work in Wealth Bondage laundering whatever they tell me to launder. The things I have seen! As I often tell the girls (of all ages, races, creeds and genders) when they complain of the systemic and ongoing abuse of power, The customer is always right, Honey. They pay for High Performing, give them High Performing. Maybe it is demeaning, but it sure beats working on the Supreme Court, or in Congress, or for the Ford Foundation Project on Social Justice and World Peace. If we are going to save Capitalism, we all have to bend over, frontwards and backwards, or there's others who will.