Giving Compass' Take:

• In this Forbes article, The Bridgespan Group's William Foster discusses how to assess nonprofits as an impact-driven investor and what constitutes a "big bettable."

• Addressing a compelling problem and evidence that a certain approach works are two major components to consider in this context. Are we looking at the right measurements?

• Here's more about the case for program-related impact investing.

I’ve written quite a bit in these pages over the last couple of years about big bets (gifts of $10 million or more) focused on social change. Mostly, I have talked about donors — why they give, how they give, and how they could give smarter.

But the recipient — typically a nonprofit, or a group of them — is obviously key to whether a big gift is made, and whether it can be used effectively. Not surprisingly, nonprofits receiving multiple big bets on social change are often large organizations with familiar names, like The Salvation Army, Planned Parenthood, Teach for America, or World Wildlife Fund. But size and recognition alone do not make a nonprofit investment “big bettable.” Some of the most interesting big bets made recently are to organizations you’ve probably never heard of.

Upstream USA, an organization founded only a few years ago, is working to ensure that one day, every child born in America is a planned-for and wanted child.  How did a fairly new, and until very recently, quite small, nonprofit like Upstream make itself big bettable?

  • it addresses a compelling problem
  • the organization has identified a plausible pathway that is big enough to matter, and small enough to believe
  • the organization has developed strong evidence that the approach works and can deliver the intervention effectively.

Read the full article about nonprofit investment by William Foster at Forbes.