Industry Insights

The philanthropic landscape is changing

A wealth transfer, a gender shift, a leadership gap, an aging population, and a rapidly changing tech sector are all forces that influence how funds flow between philanthropists, non-profit organizations, and social businesses.

Gena Rotstein

Categories: Industry Insights

November 9, 2017

A wealth transfer, a gender shift, a leadership gap, an aging population, and a rapidly changing tech sector are all forces that influence how funds flow between philanthropists, non-profit organizations, and social businesses.

This shift in the philanthropic landscape is the inspiration behind Karma & Cents:

A new venture that brings together unlikely pairings to rapidly prototype solutions that directly impact our communities.

Born out of a model from the US and Berlin, the Karma & Cents Social Impact Lab combines the unique qualities that incubators and accelerators bring to their members,  while striving to help families, family businesses and individuals move from traditional philanthropy to Philanthropy 3.0.

Each lab is unique.

The issue that needs to be solved determines who is invited to the lab and how the lab is designed. The organization or individual that contracts the lab owns the intellectual property that the lab develops. If there is no way to monetize the solution, Karma & Cents explores how best to implement solutions in a non-profit or charity setting.

By tackling issues instead of managing problems we, as a society and as individual donors/investors, can get the most bang for our social buck.

A current lab that Karma & Cents is running, models different financial vehicles that generate a return for investors AND supports low-income youth to cover post-secondary tuition costs beyond the current options of a scholarship trust, an RESP, or a donation to a university. In this case, the client has identified success metrics around the number of youth graduating university, reduction of inter-generational poverty rates, and investment returns. The larger intention is for the model to be replicated in other jurisdictions.

When it comes to working with individual philanthropists and families around their giving, Karma & Cents takes a similar approach. By crafting a diversified giving portfolio and aligning asset management portfolios with social intentions, we can demonstrate over time how tackling a specific issue can be measured. One example of this is what the Silver Gummy Foundation is doing around gender identity and masculinity studies. By combining academic research and resources with front-line organizations, the Silver Gummy Foundation is able to leverage their investment in these agencies through knowledge sharing, thereby enhancing the implementation of the solution that is being executed.

In both cases, Karma & Cents works with a multi-disciplinary team with different technical and industry experts bringing in unique perspectives on how to approach and design a solution to the problem.

At the end of the day at Karma & Cents, our clients are interested in financing solutions, pushing the envelope on complex problems, and the connecting dots between all the different players in the solutions space (non-profit, for-profit, other donors and investors, clients and customers) so that they are not just funding problems.

Do you have a complex problem that needs to be solved? Contact us and let us know.

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Our work takes place on the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples that is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. Learn more