DoGoodBetter Blog

A year ago today, we piloted the DoGoodBetterBlog and soon after launched Do More Than Give: The Six Practices of Donors of Who Change the World. The concepts in Do More Than Give were inspired by Mark Kramer’s SSIR article “Catalytic Philanthropy” and the “six practices” revealed in my previous book, Forces for Good.

I love it when a writer inspires you to view familiar things in a new light.  Lucy Bernholz’s review of the book Philanthropy in America: A History by Olivier Zunz does this well. 

Paul Grogan is a catalytic philanthropist who’s not afraid to do the right thing, even when it may look like the wrong thing for a community-based foundation to do at the time. Paul told a fascinating story at our recent forum at The Boston Foundation, which clarified for me a key aspect of how donors catalyze change: The best way to solve a social problem isn’t always to fund a nonprofit organization. Sometimes, the answer lies in funding a for-profit to tackle it—as difficult this may be for the more than 1.5 million nonprofits operating in the U.S. alone. My ears certainly pricked up when I heard it.

By Paul S. Grogan

Recently, the Boston Foundation hosted a book event featuring "Do More Than Give" by Leslie Crutchfield, John Kania, and Mark Kramer of FSG. The book reframes the way we think about philanthropy, from simple giving with good intentions to tangible impact on social change, and I am proud that the Boston Foundation was one of the success stories profiled in this book.

We talk a big game in Do More Than Give, urging donors to solve pressing problems and drive for wide-scale, systemic change. But when it comes to demonstrating results on the ground, most of the best examples in our book are local. Do the principals of catalytic philanthropy still apply at national, continental, and global scales?