The world does not need another non-profit

I thought I saw an opening in the philanthropy space. An idea that was simple, a need unmet and an opportunity to be creative. You may know from my previous writings that I am a fan of program related investments (PRI's). Program related investments are loans to non profits rather than grants. I am also a fan of donor advised funds and was a co-founder of a white label donor advised fund platform that, over the past twenty five years has raised over $6 billion.

The idea was to build a donor advised find platform that specializes in program related investments. For any number of reasons, many donor advised funds do not support program related investments. Just as my enthusiasm began to grow I turned to Chat GPT and asked "How can I build a donor advised fund platform specializing in program related investments?" As my Ai companion began to answer it suggested I look at impactassets.org. Wow, here was a non profit doing exactly what I had in mind, and more. Not only were they doing it, they were doing it well and a review of their IRS 990 revealed they took in over $800 million in the most recent annual filing.

I've reached out to Impact Assets to see how I might advance my own PRI ideas and or partner with them. I believe that there are far too many non profit organizations and many of them overlap. How many food banks, climate awareness or disease specific charities do we need. While I am sure the original intent was earnest I also have found many earnest efforts are also driven by ego. I don t want to feed into that narrative, so in the coming weeks of months you may see me post about a new initiative. With a little luck it will NOT be a new non profit.

If you found this article interesting or helpful, please feel free to forward. Have an interesting philanthropic idea? Contact me.