Giving Compass' Take:

• In this Huffington Post article, author Paul Brest explores the nature of strategic philanthropy, posits that aligning one's ideals with giving inevitably makes impact a top-down proposition.

• But there are shades of nuance to this argument. We must also be good listeners and make adjustments due to changing circumstances. Trust-building with nonprofit leaders is vital.

• Here's more details about sharing power in philanthropy.

While community-based groups play vital roles in society, they are only a small part of the nonprofit sector. Regional, national, and international organizations concerned with civil rights, education, the environment, and global poverty, and hundreds of other issues play equally important roles in making the world a better place.

Whatever a philanthropist’s goals, it would be arrogant and foolhardy not to learn from the field about which approaches work and don’t work. As David Bonbright writes, this includes not just the directors of organizations and expert practitioners and scholars in the field, but those whose lives the organizations seek to improve ...

Philanthropy is inevitably top-down in the sense that a philanthropist must choose his or her goals. You are not likely to be open to any and all organizations that come along — an animal shelter in Des Moines, a music program for disadvantaged youth in Newark, protecting ecosystems in Montana, and preventing malaria in Tanzania.

To make the point with an extreme case, no philanthropist would fund both a group advocating for gay marriage and a group seeking to ban it.

Must philanthropists also choose the strategies to achieve those goals? Not necessarily. At the outset of a new effort, letting a hundred flowers bloom may be the best plan. But over time, evidence often builds up — if you care to listen — that some approaches work better than others. Several decades ago, reasonable people could doubt whether CO2 emissions contribute to global warming, but the science has become all too clear about the relation.

Read the full article about top-down vs. bottom-up philanthropy by Paul Brest at huffingtonpost.com.