Soon after the New Year, Puerto Ricans woke up to a new reality: The earth had shaken so hard it pushed most of us out of bed. With power out and the island in total darkness, we took to the streets to speak to our neighbors about what was happening and how to respond.
If you want to know where philanthropy is headed, look to the social innovators taking on tough issues in unexpected ways and get to know what makes them tick. That’s one of the best things we have learned by operating an innovation prize program.
One of the primary ways the staff at the Jacob & Valeria Langeloth Foundation would describe ourselves and how we work is that we “follow the field.” We pride ourselves on the fact that we are non-directive funders — we would never dictate to a grantee what they should do or how they should do it.
The recent report on ending the “Starvation Cycle” confirms that the vast majority of funding is project-based, that this type of funding rarely covers the full cost of the associated work, that “cost-minus” funding is not just unfair but also causes a whole host of financial and non-financial problems for nonprofits, and that funders serious about doing their “fair share” need to pay more or loosen their restrictions.
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