Participatory Philanthropy
by Ashley High

Participatory philanthropy – involving the general public in decisions about distributing grant money - can make charity more efficient through several collaborative means and can also expedite the evaluation process after a project has been funded.

In the old days, whenever a charitable organization requested grant proposals, the announcement would be circulated in several newspapers. However, now that same announcement is relayed to hundreds of websites, mailing lists, blogs, discussion forums, and even applications like twitter.  Reviewing all of those proposals is a daunting task that involves researching each organization and project listed in all the proposals. Hiring expert reviewers is an option, but it takes money away from what potentially could have been grant dollars. Some foundations have discovered how to “crowdsource” – releasing all their proposals online so that individuals and organizations can lend their advice in the review process.

A principal player in the crowdsource philanthropy is Changemakers, whose goal is to “open source social solutions.” Instead of reviewing their proposals in a closed committee, they submit all the proposals online, allowing anyone with Internet access to read the proposals. While the final funding decisions are not decided by the general public, all the official reviewers have their own profile page where they can be contacted by private messages once the Internet user is logged onto their site.

In a recent Changemakers grants competition, 230 proposals were submitted and 1,300 comments were made, although no proposal received more than 87 comments. Most of the comments came as personal and professional recommendations. However, David Sasaki notes that it was surprising to see how much more informative, insightful, and helpful these comments were compared to the judges’ notes.

Another crowdsource organization is IdeaBlob, which gives grants away to charities based on which organization gains the most comments from its online audience. While most of the comments are simple statements of support, a few notes offer feedback and constructive criticism.

The Knight New Challenge Garage funds many projects regularly and provides a “place for prospective applicants to share their ideas and receive comments from peers, as well as coaching from program mentors (past winners and current screeners) before submitting applications.” By matching organizations and mentors, the website hopes to improve the quality of the proposals before the proposal submission deadline. Applications actually open today.

A few other organizations that utilize participatory philanthropy include Social Actions, which encourages donors to take advantage of opportunities, and Have Money Will Vlog, which (similar to Spot.us) encourages funding for video blog projects.

Participatory philanthropy at least allows foundations to explain their grant awards process. It provides accountability since an undeserving charity would not be allowed to win grant money. Also, it is advantageous to foundations since they can use the advice and knowledge of volunteer “experts.”  However, participatory philanthropy is still at the experimental stage, and it is yet to be seen what role the general public will play in making grant award decisions.

Information taken from: David Sasaki. “Participatory Philanthropy, Part I.” www.pbs.org/idealab.

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