Phil Buchanan, Giving Done Right, (2019)
Giving Done Right is a result of Buchanan’s immense experience in attempting to make philanthropy more effective. This ideally takes places on multiple levels, from foundations to grantees but also between organizations and communities served. The crux of much of the work is fixated on creating more equitable and demand led philanthropy. Demand led philanthropy may sound counter intuitive to some. Caving to individual demands may seem to have more negative connotations but what is evident is that for too long the true needs of nonprofit organizations are not at the forefront of their generous benefactors thoughts. The opposite of demand led philanthropy, the supply led model, largely appears in the sense of donors and major foundations explicitly directing how resources should best be spent to benefit communities. Buchanan’s goal is to try and make a charitable gift as effective as it can be. For this to be the case it effectively involves allowing the expertise of those who receive the gift to do what they need.
Buchanan makes clear that none of his points are blanket accusations of all philanthropic relationships. However, it is difficult to avoid the somewhat patriarchal nature of traditional philanthropy at least in America. While Giving Done Right concerns this domestic situation, the international case is even more profound. Anyone engaged in some form of international development will likely have experienced a level of this supply led model where Western organizations or individuals have come in seeking to direct development. The distinction is that local residents and communities are not actually having input in these development programs. Separating the international sphere from the domestic philanthropy does not stop there being considerable similarities between main messages.
This book largely concerns guidance for how foundations and donors may seek to pursue more effective philanthropy. Clearly categorized, Buchanan offers the key guidance points summarized at the end of each chapter. These different aspects range from more equitable giving processes to foundation strategy and from partnerships to tools for giving. Some of the guidance offered may seem like common sense but that is the significance of this book. Obviously, a foundation should be aligning their own goals with the goals of the nonprofit organization and clearly, finding the giving method that suits your means best should be important but these are points among many other things Buchanan addresses. The guidance is provided even though it may seem common sense since it has often not been followed, many of the trends in major philanthropy follow traditional methods that do not make beneficiaries as effective in providing crucial and life changing products and services. Foundations have a huge significance in American philanthropy, just note the recent importance of all the Gates Foundation’s activities. However, Buchanan insists that they could be doing more (or at least do what they are doing more effectively) and this extends beyond just possibly granting out more money or relaxing restrictions on such funding. Foundations influence can lay groundwork for grassroots community organizations to provide better for their clients, or foundations could even provide technical assistance for organizations that do not have the resources themselves.
The general message one would take from Giving Done Right is that too often the power dynamic swings in favor of the donor. The ramifications from this dynamic are significant. Buchanan as the founding executive of the Center for Effective Philanthropy has spent years attempting to find innovative ways of addressing this relationship dysfunction. Notably the Grantee Perception Report (GPR) that goes someway to opening foundations to constructive feedback. Prior to such opportunities, organizations are shown to have been fearful of providing critiques in fear of losing funding. While Buchanan does address that this uneven power dynamic will not just disappear given that one side is receiving resources from another, the guidance offered is designed to mitigate the possible consequences.
A possible argument is that these extra steps make the process more complicated and foundations and donors may withdraw funding. However, more effective philanthropy benefits both sides, in this fact lies the true benefit of what Buchanan and the CEP is attempting to encourage. While a foundation could possibly lead their own programs and some have huge endowments in order to do so, the point is that in the philanthropic ecosystem many of the community organizations and smaller entities operate much closer to the pulse of American society. As such, if these community organizations were given more freedom and allowed to direct the resources how they needed then large scale improvements would be seen. This change can be seen as the traditional and large foundations and donors giving up a level of control to the expertise of the smaller entities closer to the communities that are the true beneficiaries.
Foundations can be characterized as the generous and older benefactors of the expert local organizations. It takes both the resources and giving spirit of the benefactor to enable the expertise to be effective. Furthermore, the expert local organizations are often operating on scale in which even a relatively insignificant amount of the foundation endowment could be life changing for their programs, products and services.
What it takes to be effective is not often new or different from what has characterized the most effective funders for the past century. The issue is that effective giving is not well enough understood and is exceedingly difficult to do. What it takes to be effective runs counter to current conventional wisdom.
Phil Buchanan, Giving Done Right, p.191
Without giving away every piece of guidance or lesson to take from this work the book offers an easy to digest insight into the complexities of organized philanthropy. There are notable examples, insights into current new trends in giving and most importantly how methods should evolve going forward. While this book came out in 2019 I believe it reaches an even more important relevance in the current pandemic and beyond into the post-distancing future.
Philanthropy is drastically contributing, improving and influencing current trends in the response to COVID-19. Making philanthropy as effective as possible will not only aid the current period of mitigation and treatment but more significantly the recovery afterwards. Small businesses, communities, services, families, individuals and many more aspects of society are shaped by philanthropy. It is necessary that the response from organized philanthropy puts those most significantly hit by the current crisis at the forefront of recovery efforts. In addition, it is important that this occurs through the local expertise rather than from larger powerful entities that may not be able to hear the needs of communities quite as clearly.
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