Helping philanthropists
create meaningful impact and deepen connection
in an increasingly digital world
Understand issues. Explore change. Contribute meaningfully. Deepen connection.
We Help Philanthropists
Understand
Issues
Understand how social issues function as complex systems
Explore
Change
Explore impact levers and pathways to creating change
Contribute
Meaningfully
Identify ways to give that align with interests and capacity
Deepen
Connection
See the bigger picture of your accumulated philanthropy
Why Philanthropy Feels Different Today
Three Shifts Are Shaping Today’s Philanthropy
The Great Wealth Transfer
Who is making philanthropy decisions is changing.
Trillions of dollars are moving across generations, bringing new perspectives and expectations.
The Rise of Donor-Advised Funds
How philanthropy decisions are made is changing.
DAFs have transformed the giving process. Philanthropists can now separate the timing of charitable deductions from decisions about where and how to create impact.
Philanthropy is increasingly digital
How people discover, evaluate, and engage causes is changing.
Technology has made information more accessible than ever before.
Why These Changes Matter
Growing Demand for Philanthropy Conversations.
Together, these shifts are expanding the role of advisors.
Clients increasingly seek guidance on how to:
create impact
engage multigenerational family members
navigate an increasingly complex philanthropy landscape
This creates new opportunities for advisors.
What We Are Building
Issue Maps
Helping philanthropists
explore how social issues
function as systems
Impact Lever Maps
Helping philanthropists
understand levers
and pathways to change
Advisor Education
Helping advisors
facilitate philanthropy
conversations with clients
Conversation Frameworks
Helping families
explore philanthropy
across generations
Next Generation Tools
Helping the rising generation
explore ways to create change
through philanthropy
Why We Started Philanthropy Explorer
As philanthropy has become increasingly digital,
navigating philanthropy has become increasingly complex.
Today's philanthropists have access to:
more information about issues
more approaches to creating impact
more organizations doing the work
more ways to contribute
than ever before.
Philanthropy Explorer was founded on a simple observation:
More choices create more possibilities.
And more possibilities make decisions harder.
Historically, philanthropy decisions were often relatively straightforward.
Many philanthropists gave to organizations they already knew and trusted within their communities.
Today, philanthropists can explore many different organizations and approaches to addressing the same issue.
The question is no longer simply: Which organization should I support?
It is increasingly: What kind of change do I want to support?
Answering that question requires understanding:
how an issue functions as a system
the different approaches used to create change
the outcomes those approaches seek to create
the pathways through which change happens over time
Better understanding helps philanthropists make decisions with greater confidence and contribute in more meaningful ways.
What We Mean by Exploration
Once we understand how an issue functions as a system,
we can begin exploring how change happens within that system.
To explore how change happens, we ask one small question:
What happened next?
As we move through an issue and continue asking—What happened next?—we begin to see how different actions influence different outcomes.
Through exploration, we can:
• identify intervention points and impact levers
• understand how different pathways create different types of change
Exploration helps transform understanding into action.