Bill Gates once said “Effective philanthropy requires a lot of time and creativity - the same kind of focus and skills that building a business requires.” It is this line of thinking that drives our decisions of who we support and why we support them. Compassion motivates us; economics guide us.
We see our giving as more an investment than a donation. Utilizing a variety of accounting and finance tools and concepts, we mete out what the risk-return trade-off is of any organization we support. Whereas the ROI (return on investment) of a for-profit company is reflected in a monetary return (money in your pocket), the ROI of a not-for-profit organization will be something different. Dr. Anne Macy, of West Texas A&M University, said, “The goal of a firm is maximization of shareholder wealth… A not-for-profit firm also maximizes shareholder wealth. Because there are not shareholders, one alters the goal to those that benefit from the service. Thus, not-for profit firms maximize the number of people helped or served.” And the ROI of a not-for-profit will be different for each organization, as individual organizations have their own unique approach to meeting needs.