Giving Tuesday – Driving SMART Philanthropy

Over the past five years I have been writing about strategic giving and social impact investing.  Since starting this blog, Generating Social Capital, and working with clients on the Karma & Cents™ philanthropy planning process the landscape has changed and as a result so too has my approach to strategic philanthropy.  

As we enter into the holiday season, as is typical, we will all be approached to donate.  Some of us will look at this as opportunity to give as part of our tax planning process, others will be looking at the holiday giving season with more of a philanthropic approach.  Either way, giving should be done with mindfulness.

Enter GivingTuesday. A national movement that is leading the charge on counter-balancing Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  Please read on, to learn more about how we are encouraging people to use the GivingTuesday movement for strategic philanthropy.

I recently facilitated a board retreat for KidSport Calgary.  This is an agency that I love working with, in part because of what they have accomplished as an agency, but also in how their board has always focused their decisions directly back to their mandate.  It is an agency that has a strong brand within the sports community, the youth social services sector and the donor market.  As such it makes it very easy for a donor to do SMART philanthropy.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with SMART planning; SMART stands for:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Actionable
• Realistic
• Time-bound

You can apply these same principles to strategic philanthropy.

Specific – Understand what your want your charitable dollars to do.  Are you interested in tackling childhood obesity?  Is there a homelessness issue in your community?  Does creating a vibrant city or town resonate with you?  Whatever your social passion is, clearly articulate what that passion is so that you can identify specific organizations that are aligned with that passion.

Measurable – Let’s say you want to tackle poverty in your city and you have learned that one of the specificways of doing so is by investing in a literacy program.  Set a measurable goal around this – it could be funding a reading program at the local library and then working with that agency to set reasonable attendance targets for the year.  It can also be as complex as looking at multiple agencies along a continuum of care and coordinating with them to set key performance indicators that you can measure the impact of your donation.  Whatever approach you take, as the investor in the program it is your responsibility to negotiate the accountabilities with charity that is receiving your funds.

Actionable – What skills are required to help you achieve your social vision?  What actions with the charity undertake to execute on your social vision? Do you need to enlist the support of others to help you?  Are there opportunities for you and your family or your employees and co-workers to get involved with the organizations you are supporting?  All of these questions shape the action plan for your charitable giving.  You can be as passive or as engaged as you want, while keeping in mind how measure the success of your investment is directly related to the action steps that are implemented.

Realistic – The very social fabric upon which our society is built is very complicated.  Government, private, public and social profit sectors are tightly interwoven in some areas (like healthcare and education) and loosely connected in others (like sports and leisure).  It is important that the expectations that you have of how your social vision will be realized can be completed in the time you have set out, by the people you have enlisted and by the collection of organizations that you have chosen to support.  Looking at an investment model, it is about creating a portfolio of charities that, in combination, will lead to your social vision.

Time-bound - “A goal without a deadline is just a dream.”  I learned this from Bart Wisniowski the Founder of Bucketlist.org.  There some visions that can be achieved in your lifetime, and others that will be multi-generational.  Understanding where you sphere of influence lies on this timeline is just as important as knowing which charities will be executing on what part of the project when.  Collective Impact only works when there is an agreed upon set of guiding principles, a clear direction, a mutual understanding of success and a target for making critical path decisions.  As the funder, your sphere of influence may not cover the entire length of the implementation, so who else will be at the table to ensure your contributions of time, talent and treasures generates the ROI (Return on Investment) that you expect to achieve.

Strategic philanthropy is about SMART philanthropy.  There are obviously other pieces to this puzzle including the types of investment vehicles to use and how the assets within your portfolio are managed.  Social capital isn’t just about what you will do after you have created your wealth, it is also about what you will be doing now to develop and execute on your social vision.

As part of GivingTuesday we want to encourage individuals, families and businesses to consider SMART giving.  You can set up your own micro-foundation on myPlace2Give, choose your charities, set your disbursement schedule and funding criteria.  If you aren’t quite sure where to start, we have created a GivingTuesday Fund. I invite you to check out some of the charities that we are featuring and consider applying the SMART model to your philanthropic activities this holiday season.