Indirect Benefits Social Impact Infrastructure Organizations Provide
Introduction
Many SIIOs wrestle with the longstanding challenge of measuring the indirect benefits they believe they provide. For example, how do we measure the benefits produced when organizations such as Charity Navigator and others increase public trust by providing infrastructure to facilitate giving? As a second example, we know that social impact assets under management sit at 2% of global markets. We know SIIOs have held countless topic-related conference sessions and member-related educational programs. But how do we measure their contribution to this success?
This section seeks to demonstrate that while indirect benefits are difficult to measure or attribute, they are extensive and critically needed to accelerate the social sector. Therefore, these benefits deserve more serious consideration.
Examples
- Candid tracks how billions of nonprofit dollars are spent every year. The organization is also a critical mainstay for countless foundations and nonprofits seeking to give and raise money.
- Confluence Philanthropy and its partners have attracted equity, inclusion, and diversity signatories with a collective $1.89 trillion of assets under management. The organization also brings together members to invest in a range of social impact-related causes.
- The Worldwide Initiative for Grantmaker Support (WINGS) has motivated more than 600 signatories from foundations to agree to take urgent action on climate change.
- WINGS builds relationships with high-level development intermediaries to adopt best practices. At the end of the 2022 Effective Development Co-operation Summit in Geneva, USAID and 14 governments expressed their commitment to support localized aid practices.
- The Council on Foundations and its partners motivated 806 foundations to pledge increased, less restrictive multi-year giving during the COVID-19 crisis.
- The United Philanthropy Forum serves more than 90 philanthropy support organizations representing more than 7,000 funders.
- Charity Navigator attracts 11 million annual users.
- Creative Visions Foundation’s Rock Your World Program educates and trains young people in filmmaking on social issues and reached 650,000 students in 25,000 schools, involving 29,000 teachers in 72 countries.
- Emerging Leaders Foundation has trained 4,366 young people, and reports to have reached another 200,000 young people across the African continent.
- Over 10,000 students have graduated from the Millennium Campus Network’s curriculum on the sustainable development goals from 450 universities worldwide
Quotes from The United Philanthropy Forum’s Covid-19 Crucible Report
“More than 9 in 10 PSO leaders believe their PSO’s response to the pandemic had a positive effect on how members perceive their organization’s value. … Our programming went from 80 programs in a given year to 120, a 50% increase, with no increase in staff,” one PSO leader said. “And it was member and sector driven.”
“For all the criticism that philanthropies are slow to change, funders in the study reported making changes in a wide range of areas, including philanthropic models and approaches, standards and ethics, diversity and inclusion, financial stewardship, governance, grantmaking, grants management, and learning and evaluation. More than half of funders (55%) who responded to the survey said they had adopted an idea or best practice in the last two years that was informed by practice knowledge, and 17% are in the process of making a change.”
“55% adapted an idea or practice in the last two years.”
“PSOs became clearinghouses of information and curated virtual convenings for action and learning tailored to member needs and interests. “Our members needed a centralized place to receive and disseminate information,” one leader said. ‘We have received feedback from our members, both through feedback forms and directly through email, letting us know that they appreciated the peer learning spaces, issues expert presentations, collaborative opportunities, and other support we have offered during the pandemic,’ one PSO leader said. Another leader reported that ‘even after the emergency calls stopped, their PSO continues to get member feedback, that these calls were the most impactful thing we’ve ever done.”
The article below highlights how one foundation provided unrestricted funding of approximately $1 million per year to several Philanthropy Support Organizations in California over a five-year period.
Quote from the Making the Leap Article
“California’s three regional associations collaborated to take promising regional strategies to the next level and gave a major boost to statewide efforts such as the work of ensuring every Californian was counted in the 2020 Census, trust-based philanthropy practices, and the holistic budgeting and planning process known as full-cost grantmaking.”
Conclusion
The indirect benefits SIIOs provide may be difficult to measure. However, Propel Philanthropy argues that, cumulatively, they are immense. Candid, for example, facilitates grant writing and fundraising for countless foundations and nonprofits, respectively, streamlining the funding process. Similarly, organizations like Charity Navigator bolster public trust and provide education on impactful giving. Beyond these, SIIOs, also known as philanthropy support organizations, play a crucial role in guiding billions of dollars in funding annually, enhancing the equitability, ethicality, and effectiveness of giving.
Further indirect benefits emerge from sector-building organizations that boost nonprofit capacity. Some of these also engage in advocacy, preventing legislation that could hinder the progress of the nonprofit sector, as is the case for those advocating for the philanthropy and civil society sectors. WINGS’s success at mobilizing over 600 foundations to commit to urgent climate action is an example of direct issue engagement. The same holds for many SIIOs engaged in furthering, for example, equity and inclusion, democracy, and community development.
The expansive reach of SIIOs was particularly evident in their response to the Covid-19 crisis. Organizations within the United Philanthropy Forum convened extensively, demonstrating efforts to collaborate, centralize access to data, work with governments, increase equity and inclusion, and foster community during this challenging time. Both the United Philanthropy Forum and WINGS act as system orchestrators, promoting best practices and knowledge sharing among their members.
While we maintain that the cumulative indirect impact of SIIOs is immense, supporting these organizations is not a panacea or a stand-alone solution. Critiques might point out that SIIOs often share overlapping functions, raising discussions about the potential for consolidation. A significant challenge for these organizations is keeping pace with rapidly evolving sector needs, which require constant adaptation and innovation to remain relevant. While this is highly beneficial, the process incurs its share of costs. when these could be better consolidated. For example, SIIOs could collaborate more often to bring new trends to the attention of their members. Another notable challenge lies in quantifying the benefits of specific activities, such as conferences, and understanding how these events translate into long-term sector improvements.”
In conclusion, while the indirect benefits of SIIOs are not easily quantifiable, their collective outputs address many critical gaps. Examples include enabling funders to write effective grants, increasing public trust, supporting nonprofit capacity building, and advancing best practices. Recognizing their cumulative impact underscores the need for greater appreciation and support of SIIOs while calling on them to improve their abilities to quantify better the indirect benefits they provide.