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New Philanthropy’s Biggest Stars

By  Drew Lindsay
October 4, 2016

This article is one of a series The Chronicle is featuring this month about leaders who are pushing unorthodox ideas to give philanthropy more power to do good.

Some of the biggest innovators of the “new philanthropy” have achieved acclaim for their innovations, including a nonprofit incubator, cash transfers directly to the poor, venture philanthropy, Giving Tuesday, and much more.

Deval Patrick

The former Massachusetts governor — who backed social-impact bonds while in office — leads Double Impact, an investment arm of Bain Capital focused on social-change companies.

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This article is one of a series The Chronicle is featuring this month about leaders who are pushing unorthodox ideas to give philanthropy more power to do good.

Some of the biggest innovators of the “new philanthropy” have achieved acclaim for their innovations, including a nonprofit incubator, cash transfers directly to the poor, venture philanthropy, Giving Tuesday, and much more.

Deval Patrick

The former Massachusetts governor — who backed social-impact bonds while in office — leads Double Impact, an investment arm of Bain Capital focused on social-change companies.

Clara Miller

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She has doubled down on the Heron Foundation’s impact investing with a plan to direct its entire endowment toward fighting poverty.

Paul Niehaus

An economist, he’s president and co-founder of the international aid group Give Directly, which is pioneering the practice of using cash transfers to help the poor.

Lisa Phillips

As director of New York’s City’s New Museum, she launched a museum-run incubator to help artists, designers, and others develop as entrepreneurs.

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Nancy Roob

The president of the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation has orchestrated several “growth-capital aggregation” efforts — most recently Blue Meridian Partners, which is targeting child and youth development. These efforts pool philanthropic cash to expand data-proven 
effective charities.

Yvon Chouinard

The Patagonia founder made his company one of the first and best-known B Corporations, a certification awarded to businesses that demonstrate altruism through data and policies.

What’s the Big Idea?

100%

New ideas about philanthropy are springing up from all sorts of places. See how creative thinkers are helping nonprofits break out of the mold.

William Draper, Robin Richards Donohoe, and Robert Kaplan

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The foundation led by these Wall Street venture- capital pros is a frontrunner in venture philanthropy. One early bet that paid off: 
microfinance trailblazer Kiva.

Dean Karlan

The Yale economist founded Innovations for Poverty Action to measure the impact of international-poverty programs through randomized, controlled trials. He’s now promoting “impact audits” of charities to help guide donors’ giving.

Kat Taylor

Among the ventures of this California philanthropist and her husband, Tom Steyer: a bank owned by a private foundation that makes loans to social-good organizations and businesses and plows profits back into underserved communities, often through nonprofit grants.

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Henry Timms

The creator of Giving Tuesday promotes a “new power” theory of doing good in which nonprofits build virtual communities of passionate supporters.

Liesel Pritzker 
Simmons

The Hyatt hotel heiress is using her name and fortune to promote and practice impact investing.

Cari Tuna

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She and husband Dustin Moskovitz, a Facebook co-founder, have formed the Open Philanthropy Project to identify effective, underfunded causes where relatively small donations can have a big impact.

Cheryl Dorsey

She leads Echoing Green, which nurtures leaders of enterprises for social change, including for-profit ventures.

Mauricio Lim Miller

The MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant winner has created a new antipoverty approach: Rather than offer financial help with professionals directing how the support is used, his organization, Family Independence Initiative, offers small stipends contingent upon low-income families meeting goals developed with help from friends, family, and neighbors.

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Pierre Omidyar

The eBay co-founder and his wife, Pam, helped pioneer the idea that mixing charitable giving with for-profit investments through a limited-liability corporation could be the best blend for doing good.

Charles Best

Before there was Kickstarter or Indiegogo, there was DonorsChoose.org, which Mr. Best launched as a way for teachers to raise money for classroom projects. Sixteen years and a half-billion dollars later, crowdfunding is a fixture in fundraising culture.

A version of this article appeared in the October 4, 2016, issue.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
InnovationFoundation Giving
Drew Lindsay
Drew is a longtime magazine writer and editor who joined the Chronicle of Philanthropy in 2014.
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