Strategies for Impact
in Philanthropy
A project at the Centre for Social Investment (CSI)
University of Heidelberg, Germany
Project Brief
Précis
With the growth of foundations in numbers and resources, and the greater policy recognition they
receive, questions about the impact of philanthropy arise more frequently: how effectively are
foundation resources employed? And how do philanthropic performance and impact compare to
alternatives such as government agencies, businesses and non-profit organizations? The project
‘Strategies for Impact in Philanthropy’ seeks to address these questions by conducting a series of
comprehensive case studies of successful foundation programmes across six European countries. The goal
is to identify the external and internal conditions – namely the leadership and management aspects –
leading to high-impact philanthropy.
1. Background of the project
Despite significant expansion, the financial resources of Europe’s foundations remain marginal in relation
to the magnitude of the needs they address, be it in the fields of social welfare and health care, the
environment, education or arts and culture. What is more, the financial resources foundations command
rank significantly below inputs provided by the non-profit sector as a whole, let alone the contributions
of the state and, depending on the field, business.
Therefore, for foundations, addressing pressing needs and making contributions to the public good
cannot be a matter of financial inputs or quantity alone. The core challenge for philanthropy is in fact to
answer the question: which approaches yield maximum impact given the limited financial resources
available to foundations? In other words, how can foundations use philanthropic leverage to add value to
outcomes substantially above the relative size of their financial contribution?
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European foundations have developed a rich repertoire of strategic as well as practical competencies in
enhancing the effects of philanthropic resources. However, much of this leadership and management
knowledge remains implicit, and little is shared in a systematic way in terms of good practices and peer
learning among Europe’s philanthropic community. Yet, for the future development of philanthropy in
Europe, there is a great need to analyze this knowledge base systematically and make it available to the
foundation community and other stakeholders. We are convinced that a forward-looking approach to
assess the mechanisms of philanthropic leverage will not only benefit the foundation community
generally but also inform the debate about public expectations of philanthropy and its impact in relation
to the changing roles of the market, the state and the third sector.
2. P roject design and objectives
The project intends to identify high impact, high leverage philanthropic strategies and approaches in the
European foundation sector by conducting a series of 25 in-depth case studies as well as comprehensive
desktop research to establish a knowledge pool for the development of a basic analytical framework for
effective philanthropic strategies.
In researching these strategies and practices, the project will take into account the different political and
philanthropic cultures of the countries involved, e.g., non-profit regimes and philanthropic traditions.
Thus we initially focus on programmes from a variety of six European countries, representing different
political frameworks and philanthropic regimes. We assume that across these different settings,
foundations have developed distinct repertoires of knowledge and expertise, including preferred points of
intervention as well as working philosophies.
Design
SIP embraces a thoroughly inductive process design. The project is not about theory testing but rather
about portraying and analyzing promising experiences of high-impact philanthropy in Europe. In a first
step, a collection of high-impact philanthropic programmes is being collected based on peer
recommendations. Out of these, about 80 cases are chosen and portrayed in vignettes – short abstracts
of the different programmes.
On the basis of the vignettes, a smaller number of approximately 25 in-depth cases are selected for
further research. Theses cases are being investigated by case authors who collect information on
foundation and case by means of desktop research and a series of interviews with different stakeholders
inside and outside the foundation. The comprehensive data gathered by the case authors are analyzed by
the SIP team in Heidelberg to derive knowledge about the mechanisms and characteristic features of
high-impact philanthropy.
Countries
Given the geographical scope of the project and the complexity of social impact measurement in general,
we will initially approach the methodological challenges inherent in this type of research by focusing on
six countries: Belgium, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, and the UK. The countries were selected on the
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basis of a balanced proportion of different non-profit regimes. In addition, access to sufficient and
significant data played a role in our choice.
Fields/Topics
SIP takes in view different kinds of programmes working on a broad range of topics. For a comparison of
foundation strategies across countries within the given resource framework, we need to also investigate
a sufficient number of strategies that tackle a similar problem, though. Thus for a start we chose as our
main focus activities that are targeted at ‘equal participation and integration in society’.
This may include programmes related to integration of migrants, equal gender opportunities, giving voice
to all stakeholders, etc. The aim was to find an issue that is defined openly enough to find a sufficient
number of interesting activities across Europe and at the same time specific enough to allow for
meaningful comparison. We will, however, remain open to adding new areas of research.
Deliverables
There are four major products emerging from this project:
1. A compendium of good practices for high-impact philanthropy, including an overview of major
findings and comparative analysis of project data
2. A compendium of 80 vignettes containing brief abstracts of different foundation programmes
3. An online database for Centres of Philanthropy in Europe containing a set of 25 teaching cases
as curricular material for executive trainings of foundation professionals
4. Executive training sessions for funding foundations
Objectives & Dissemination
The project seeks to generate knowledge about and enhance understanding of the mechanisms leading
to high-impact philanthropy to inform and improve the strategic capacity of European philanthropy and
help realize the developmental potential of European foundations.
Moreover, the knowledge generated by our research will serve as a key resource for the professional
development efforts of the philanthropic sector. The teaching cases will inform the different European
Masters Programmes at university levels and at the same time be of value to executive training and
summer academy efforts. The CSI will be prepared to collaborate with partners interested in the
dissemination or use of the cases.
The ‘Strategies for Impact’ project will also contribute to the scientific discussion of the potential, the
role and the social significance of philanthropy in Europe by publishing our main findings in a series of
articles in scientific journals and conferences.
In a further step, the project will compare the results obtained from the European case studies to the
experiences in other countries, in particular the United States and Canada. This would enable us to
examine the distinctiveness of European philanthropy and explore to what extent European approaches
could be relevant to other philanthropic systems as well. Furthermore, we aim to establish a European
counterweight to the existing US approaches and to develop rich case study material on European
philanthropy.
Cooperation
An international advisory committee guides the project and the selection of case studies. We cooperate
with the foundations granting support and the leading foundations in the European Foundation Centre
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and beyond. In conducting the case studies, a network of European centres of philanthropic research and
individual scholars are involved. This includes collaboration with the Stockholm School of Economics
(Prof. Filip Wijkström), the Carnegie Foundation UK-led effort on foundation strategies (Diana Leat), the
Italian MISP Programme and others.
Project duration
January 2007 – December 2009
3. Evaluation
The project results will be evaluated by tracking the dissemination of the results in the following areas:
• Application of case results by funding partners or other foundations in training, education and
strategy development contexts
• Introduction to regular course programmes of universities
• Introduction to executive training events of different organizers and host institutions
• Number and significance of scientific publications
• Demand for case studies in print and electronic formats
• Quotations, references to case studies in the literature
CSI will commission an evaluator to track and survey this information at the end of the project and two
years thereafter.
4. Funders & Budget
The project is kindly supported by the King Baudouin Foundation (Belgium), Calouste Gulbenkian
Foundation (Portugal), and the Stiftelsen Riksbanken Jubileumsfond (Sweden) through NEF, the Network
of European Foundations; and the Compagnia di San Paolo (Italy).
Overall Budget is 481.500 Euro.
Euro .
5. Contact
Ekkehard Thümler (Project director), Email: [email protected]