What is Venture Philanthropy? Rockefeller Foundation explains in Nonprofit Quarterly.
Venture philanthropy. Angel philanthropy. Enterprise philanthropy. Impact philanthropy. Catalytic philanthropy. Strategic philanthropy. These are some of the names that are being used to describe philanthropic models that go far beyond the writing of checks and often take a deep and long-term view of what it means to invest in solving global and/or local problems.
As noted in a blog post on the Rockefeller Foundation website, foundations have been experimenting with variations on the classic grantmaking model for at least half a century. But in the wake of the Great Recession, as government budgets continue to be squeezed, foundations and individual philanthropists are increasingly blazing new trails in funding models designed to yield social impact as well as a financial return on their investments….