Giving Circle 1.0
Some friends and I have started a semi-formal giving circle.
We really like the general concept but wanted to try something a little different. Something that would:
Speak to our values and priorities as social entrepreneurs
Have a simple process for us
Not ask busy nonprofit staff to do any extra work
Deepen our knowledge and appreciation of the great organizations doing great work around the world
Help us grow closer as a group
We just did the first pilot. We feel pretty good about it and excited to try version 2.0.
What’s a Giving Circle?
Giving Circles have become a popular way for groups of friends to partner in philanthropy by pooling their money and have a bigger impact on a great organization than they could individually.
They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, with some having significant visibility and influence in their communities while others fly under the radar and remain fairly anonymous outside of their membership.
What is the Social Entrepreneurs Action Network?
The S.E.A.N. is more than just the world’s best acronym. 😊
In all seriousness, we’re a loose group of Austin-area professionals who at one point worked for nonprofits and who today provide services to the nonprofit sector. For the most part, we work deeply in technology and/or are building solutions that can scale beyond what just one or two people can accomplish alone.
How did we structure version 1.0?
We wanted to do this in a way that would be simple and easy for everyone to agree with. So it boiled down to a few key ingredients.
MacKenzie Scott. The MacKenzie Scott quiet research model inspired us: no application process. Instead we do the research (or use somebody else’s). If any vetting happens, we do it without asking the nonprofit staff to do any work.
Give Well. For years, Give Well has engaged in serious vetting to identify nonprofits that have the biggest impact per dollar on human lives. Their list of 4 organizations made it easy for everyone to feel confident that the money would have a meaningful impact no matter which organization got the most votes.
Ranked Voting. Runoff voting can take a lot of time to do manually, so we found a free, user-friendly online tool to handle it instantaneously.
$100 each. Everyone committed to make a gift of $100 to the organization that won the most votes.
Individual donations. Literally pooling money can get complicated and would ideally involve some form of incorporation. So, to keep it simple, we agreed that everyone would make an individual online gift as soon as we had a winner.
The big day!
We gathered over lunch at a local coffee shop.
Everyone gave a quick pitch for their favorite of the four organizations.
We cast our votes quickly and painlessly.
20 minutes after we started, we had a winner: The Against Malaria Foundation.
They do great work providing mosquito nets in Africa. This mosquito-borne illness kills 400,000 people annually and sickens millions more. A $2 mosquito net can literally save a life and also have a big economic impact. The organization estimates that every $1 spent on mosquito nets can have a $12 economic impact.
Plans for version 2.0
We discussed a variety of ways we could adjust the model for next time:
Local vs national vs international
Using MacKenzie Scott’s list of recipient organizations – her staff have already vetted them for effectiveness but we wondered whether they would have the capacity to use additional funds effectively
In person vs virtual
We generally liked the idea of limiting the number of recipient organizations to three or four and keeping with an issue area theme. One member volunteered to identify the theme and the candidate organizations for us by the end of the month.
Otherwise, version 2.0 will look like version 1.0.
As before, we won’t request, and won’t accept, applications.
I look forward to giving you an update in a couple of months!