全球视野 | 每年花费数十亿但却毫无进展？停滞不前的慈善事业需要支持创新来解决社会问题

It’s a question that plagues philanthropists: Why, in such a wealthy nation, have we yet to conquer our most persistent social problems? 

这是一个困扰慈善家的问题：为什么在这样一个富裕的国家，我们还没有克服最顽固的社会问题？ 

Homelessness is an excellent example. Although the U.S. spends billions of dollars every year to address homelessness and over 11,000 U.S. nonprofits are dedicated to the cause, homelessness continues to grow. Between 2018 and 2022, California alone spent over $17.5 billion trying to address the issue without even making a dent in it. 

无家可归问题就是一个很好的例子。尽管美国每年花费数十亿美元来解决无家可归者问题，并且有超过11000家美国非营利组织致力于这一事业，但无家可归者人数仍在不断增加。在2018年至2022年期间，仅加州就花费了超过175亿美元来解决这一问题，但却毫无进展。 

Perhaps, instead of asking ourselves, Are we spending enough money?, we should be asking, Are we spending money effectively? 

也许我们不应该问自己“我们花的钱够多吗？”而应该问“我们花的钱有效吗？”

Far too little of the nearly $500 billion Americans gave to charities last year was spent addressing that question. Instead, philanthropy has become too cautious of a discipline, with fewer big funders and corporate groups willing to use their dollars to fund the research, new approaches and innovative models that are so desperately needed. 

在去年美国人向慈善机构捐赠的近5000亿美元中，用于解决这一问题的资金太少了。相反，慈善事业已经变得过于谨慎，愿意用他们的钱资助研究、新方法和创新模式的大型资助者和企业越来越少，而这些研究、新方法和创新模式是迫切需要的。

Big-dollar philanthropy — whether private funds or corporate dollars — has become investmentlike in its approach. In order to receive sizable grants or donations, nonprofits need to check boxes that supposedly meet certain standards of due diligence. 

无论是私人资金还是企业资金，大额资金的慈善事业已成为一种投资方式。为了获得可观的大笔拨款或捐赠，非营利组织需要一项项检查所谓符合某些尽职调查标准的选项。 

Some funders may not even consider a nonprofit if they haven’t already reached a certain level of funding, don’t have a specific GuideStar rating or can’t provide a decade’s worth of tax filings. Every dollar put in needs to have a clear output, preferably one that’s easy to understand and that will look nice on end-of-year giving reports to donors and new prospects. 

如果一个非营利组织的资金没有达到一定水平，没有特定的GuideStar评级，或者不能提供十年的纳税申报资料，那么一些资助者甚至不会考虑该组织。投入的每一分钱都需要有明确的产出，最好是易于理解且在年终捐赠报告中很好看的产出，以供捐赠人和新的潜在捐赠人查看。 

Year after year, the same big-name nonprofits are funded (arguably, overfunded) to run the same popular programs again and again, with little reason — or budget — for them to try new approaches or methods. At the same time, smaller and younger nonprofits struggle to get the attention of major funders and are often left out in the cold. Likewise, larger nonprofits also live and die by their funding and don’t have the liberty of experimentation or failure. 

年复一年，同样的大牌非营利组织获得资助（可以说是资金过剩的资助），来一次又一次地开展同样受欢迎的项目，几乎没有理由或预算让它们尝试新的方式或方法。与此同时，规模较小、成立时间较短的非营利组织难以吸引主要资助者的注意，往往被冷落。同样，大型非营利组织也因资金而生，因资金而死，没有试验或失败的自由。 

It’s a model that incentivizes stagnation and brings to mind the old adage about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. 

这种模式鼓励停滞不前，让人想起一句老话，即一遍又一遍地做同一件事，却期待不同的结果。

It’s up to philanthropists to shift the model. Instead of acting as merely day traders in the nonprofit landscape, philanthropists need to also be venture capitalists, supporting the role of nonprofits as laboratories of innovation and research. 

慈善家应该转变这种模式。慈善家不应仅仅充当非营利领域的日内交易员，还需要成为风险投资家，支持非营利组织发挥创新作用和作为研究实验室的角色。 

It will take a shift in the mindset that most in the philanthropic space currently have. In order to power innovation at nonprofits, philanthropists need to change their risk appetite. Funding begets funding, and too often, funders are scared to make the first move and take a chance on a new idea or up-and-coming nonprofit. 

这需要转变目前慈善领域大多数人的思维方式。为了推动非营利组织的创新，慈善家们需要改变他们的风险偏好。资金会带来资金，而且往往资助者害怕迈出第一步，不敢冒险尝试新想法或支持新兴的非营利组织。 

This mindset disadvantages new ideas and new leaders. National nonprofits with national recognition are easier to fund, while smaller, minority-led or women-led nonprofits may find it more difficult to get major dollars in, as do those serving rural or inner-city communities. Oftentimes, as was the case especially in the early days of the COVID pandemic, the smaller groups were the ones best suited to get help out the fastest and most effectively. 

这种心态不利于新想法和新领导者。拥有全国知名度的全国性非营利组织更容易获得资助，而那些规模较小、由少数族裔或妇女领导的非营利组织，以及那些服务于农村或城市社区的非营利组织，可能会更难获得大笔资金。通常情况下，尤其是在新冠肺炎疫情初期，小型组织最适合提供最快、最有效的帮助。 

For donor groups and corporate funds, addressing risk appetite can be achieved through a close examination of grant requirements. Figure out where and how barriers to entry can be lowered to be more inclusive and agile. This will open doors for new nonprofits and innovators. It can also create more agility for funders to flex as needs change. 

对于捐赠人团体和企业基金来说，可以通过仔细检查拨款要求来解决风险偏好问题。找出在哪些方面以及如何降低准入门槛，以更具包容性和灵活性。这将为新的非营利组织和创新者敞开大门。它还能为资助者创造更多的灵活性，以适应需求的变化。

Shifting philanthropy dollars toward research can help to ease some concerns around risk. Research and pilot programs are often the engines behind nonprofit innovation but can be difficult to fund due to what’s perceived as a lack of definitive return on investment. For example, it's simple to make the decision to fund a backpack-donation program; every backpack has a cost, and every cost correlates to a student helped. It feels riskier to fund a report researching student achievement in lower-income districts. 

将慈善资金转向研究，有助于缓解对风险的担忧。研究和试点项目往往是非营利组织创新背后的引擎，但由于被认为缺乏明确的投资回报，因此很难获得资助。例如，决定资助一个捐赠背包的项目很简单：每个背包都有成本，每个成本都与受助学生相关。而资助一份研究低收入地区学生成绩的报告，则感觉风险较大。 

The right research projects, however, can provide foundational and transformative insights that shift the way an entire issue area is managed. It can provide feedback on how certain programs are or aren’t working and boost the effectiveness of not only nonprofit work, but government work as well. 

然而，正确的研究项目可以提供基础性和变革性的见解，从而改变整个问题领域的管理方式。它可以就某些计划的成效或不足提供反馈，不仅能提高非营利工作的效率，还能提高政府工作的效率。 

It’s a different approach to philanthropy — one that appreciates the complexity of the issues nonprofits are working to address and creates space for new ideas and new technologies. Just like we don’t expect today’s problems to be solved by yesterday’s technologies in the private sector, we can’t expect nonprofits to be effective using the same tactics again and again. 

这是一种与众不同的慈善方式。这种慈善方式重视非营利组织所要解决的问题的复杂性，并为新想法和新技术创造空间。就像在私营部门，我们不能指望用昨天的技术来解决今天的问题一样，我们也不能指望非营利组织一而再、再而三地使用同样的策略来取得成效。 

As the donors powering the nonprofit engine, philanthropists have the ability to shift the landscape of charity work by becoming active partners and accepting some of the risk that comes with solving today’s biggest issues. They should start shifting. 

作为推动非营利引擎的捐赠人，慈善家有能力通过成为积极的合作伙伴，并承担解决当今最大问题所带来的部分风险，来改变慈善工作的格局。他们应该开始转变。