I think 1-2 years is a reasonable window to test for 1 year of funding. I think some benefits of the grant would remain beyond that, but only a small percentage. Direct networking, marketing, website improvement etc. need people working directly to increase funding and I struggle to see how those benefits would persist if no-one was working and the money stopped?
How do you imagine the benefits might continue past 2 years?
I agree that there will likely be some benefits beyond the grant period (which is 1-2 years depending on the grant). Those will especially be felt in cases in which the grant helped seed an org that might not get started or might get started many years later otherwise. That wasn’t the case for many of the grants though, in general we’re providing ops support for 1-2 y for an existing org.
Even though I made most of these grants non-renewable, in our core effective giving portfolio we’re a stable funder for most organizations, which means that I’ll reassess them every 2y or so to determine if we should renew funding, and at what level. We then use every grant period to look at (adjusted) money moved and how that compares to the orgs costs. This is a simplified view and I think we’ll need to adjust it in some cases, e.g. now that a lot of the organizations are forming partnerships with GWWC, some of the wins they land in a given grant period through pledges will be seen for many years, so we should consider that, but avoid double counting in future periods.
Ozzie, to your point of expecting the area to be able to absorb more money, I think that’s true. We did discuss with some orgs if it was worth them scaling further, but most are being cautious and want to hit certain milestones/make sure they’re on a sustainable growth path before doing so, which I appreciate. The two ways in which I currently imagine the ecosystem could absorb more funds is: (1) by seeding new efforts (there are still many gaps, so I’m excited to see other orgs get started), (2) by scaling existing efforts if some marketing strategy really pays off and/or if they tap into a new segment and need more, or dedicated, staff (e.g. for national chapters that start doing more (U)HNW advising). I should also state that the amount of funding that we’re able to provide for the ecosystem will vary depending on the year, considering my program’s budget and other grants on the table (both funding tied to existing grantees, and other potential opportunities).
How do you imagine the benefits might continue past 2 years?
If any of these can be high-growth ventures, then early work is mainly useful in helping to set up later work. There’s often a lot of experimentation, product-market-fit finding, learning about which talent is good at this, early on.
Related, I’d expect that some of this work would take a long time to provide concrete returns. My model is that it can take several years to convince certain wealthy people to give up money. Many will make their donations late in life. (Though I realize that discounting factors might make the later stuff much less valuable than otherwise)
I think 1-2 years is a reasonable window to test for 1 year of funding. I think some benefits of the grant would remain beyond that, but only a small percentage. Direct networking, marketing, website improvement etc. need people working directly to increase funding and I struggle to see how those benefits would persist if no-one was working and the money stopped?
How do you imagine the benefits might continue past 2 years?
Thanks Ozzie and Nick!
I agree that there will likely be some benefits beyond the grant period (which is 1-2 years depending on the grant). Those will especially be felt in cases in which the grant helped seed an org that might not get started or might get started many years later otherwise. That wasn’t the case for many of the grants though, in general we’re providing ops support for 1-2 y for an existing org.
Even though I made most of these grants non-renewable, in our core effective giving portfolio we’re a stable funder for most organizations, which means that I’ll reassess them every 2y or so to determine if we should renew funding, and at what level. We then use every grant period to look at (adjusted) money moved and how that compares to the orgs costs. This is a simplified view and I think we’ll need to adjust it in some cases, e.g. now that a lot of the organizations are forming partnerships with GWWC, some of the wins they land in a given grant period through pledges will be seen for many years, so we should consider that, but avoid double counting in future periods.
Ozzie, to your point of expecting the area to be able to absorb more money, I think that’s true. We did discuss with some orgs if it was worth them scaling further, but most are being cautious and want to hit certain milestones/make sure they’re on a sustainable growth path before doing so, which I appreciate. The two ways in which I currently imagine the ecosystem could absorb more funds is: (1) by seeding new efforts (there are still many gaps, so I’m excited to see other orgs get started), (2) by scaling existing efforts if some marketing strategy really pays off and/or if they tap into a new segment and need more, or dedicated, staff (e.g. for national chapters that start doing more (U)HNW advising). I should also state that the amount of funding that we’re able to provide for the ecosystem will vary depending on the year, considering my program’s budget and other grants on the table (both funding tied to existing grantees, and other potential opportunities).
If any of these can be high-growth ventures, then early work is mainly useful in helping to set up later work. There’s often a lot of experimentation, product-market-fit finding, learning about which talent is good at this, early on.
Related, I’d expect that some of this work would take a long time to provide concrete returns. My model is that it can take several years to convince certain wealthy people to give up money. Many will make their donations late in life. (Though I realize that discounting factors might make the later stuff much less valuable than otherwise)