This book highlights the historic inflection point we are in both in terms of philanthropy in
general and specifically in financing the solutions to our largest and most urgent social and
environmental problems. It covers the two movements that have recently had a dramatic influence
on capitalism. First wealthy millennials have been pressuring their bankers to invest their
family portfolios in companies with high social and environmental impact (ESG ratings)
triggering a wave where the wealth management industry and now all public companies are
significantly adapting to the increasing demand for good. Second The Giving Pledge triggered
another wave changing what success and the accumulation of wealth means. It has even begun to
redefine the goal of capitalism as more than 200 billionaires have pledged to give half or more
of their wealth away. This book also focuses on the bottleneck problem that The Giving Pledge
has created as it is very hard to give hundreds of billions away with measurable impact to
nonprofits lacking detailed long-term plans to scale. Nonprofits have never had the luxury of
having all the resources to invest in the planning management training and systems needed to
rapidly expand. Thus taking in very large gifts is very difficult and almost impossible to
justify. Large philanthropy can always be used for traditional capital campaigns and to fund
endowments yet The Giving Pledge signers are often looking for large visible impact beyond
these traditional avenues. The result is a bottleneck which has grown as more billionaires
pledge their funds away while their wealth continues to skyrocket and giving rates stay very
small. Finally this book covers the emergence of large giving vehicles modelled after the
private equity industry. They have sophisticated third-party managers focused on deploying
funds and supporting management teams. It also covers the scaling of nonprofits in a
significant way (Big Bets) as well as investing large philanthropy through for-profits as
Program Related Investments (PRI) at scale. This book is of interest specifically to nonprofit
and foundation leaders as well as wealth managers estate attorneys and other philanthropic
advisors. It is also of interest to investors and corporate CEOs as they begin to access these
large pools for philanthropic capital to increase their impact. This book is focused on
providing those with the ability to make large philanthropic investments a path to scale their
impact and increase their fulfillment and that of their family. It provides a step-by-step
guide of how these approaches especially PRI at scale can actually solve the social and
environmental challenges that have been seemingly hopeless.
