Last week, a project at work involved researching the best practices of venture philanthropy. I really had no idea what this topic entailed besides the fact that “it had something to do with venture capital.” Even knowing that meant very little, because my knowledge on venture capital is quite limited to begin with. After two days of research, I’ve discovered that venture philanthropy is an emerging field that has the potential to make a lasting impact in our quest to solve the world’s problems.
Although there has been no official definition for venture philanthropy, the core concept of venture philanthropy involves treating funding as an investment rather than a charitable donation. By implementing the practices of venture capital firms, venture philanthropy hopes to help the social sector by infusing techniques that will result in high impact. Venture philanthropy is often characterized by innovative approaches, a focus on measurable results, and long term impact. This field was first introduced in a 1997 Harvard Business Review article called “Virtuous Capital: What Foundations Can Learn from Venture Capitalists.”
Check out the Acumen Fund – an awesome example of venture philanthropy at its best.
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yeah i think its a super cool idea too!!! another example of how the public and private sectors are converging huh :)
ReplyDeletewanted to do a research paper on this topic last sem but got lazy. FAIL. haha.
cool conference coming up in sept on this topic: http://socialcapitalmarkets.net/
sad that the tics cost like $100 >_<
- nadia
Wow, reading the Acumen 'guiding principles' pages sounds very similar to the documents I read at General Electric all the time.
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