Beyond the Gift: Is Your Institution Ready for Venture Philanthropy?

Around 2010, when I was at UWA Business School, we hosted public lectures, seminars, and conversations around a provocative new idea.

Matthew Bishop and Michael Green had called it philanthrocapitalism: the application of entrepreneurial ambition, investment thinking, and business discipline to some of society’s most difficult problems. Their book argued that a new generation of philanthropists would want to do more than give money away. They would seek evidence, take risks, contribute expertise, build partnerships, and remain closely engaged in achieving results.

The term was controversial, as it was intended to be. Could the approaches used to build private wealth really be applied to social challenges? Should wealthy individuals have so much influence over the definition of public good? Were communities being treated as partners in change, or as beneficiaries of somebody else’s theory?

Those questions have not gone away. But on one point, Bishop and Green were perceptive: the donor was changing.

Nearly two decades later, the more urgent question may be whether our institutions have changed with them.

The prediction that came true

Traditional philanthropy was often built around a relatively clear exchange. An institution developed a case, a donor made a gift, the organisation delivered the work, and the donor received recognition, stewardship, and evidence that the funds had been used appropriately.

That model remains important. Not every donor wants to become a strategic partner, and not every gift needs to become an exercise in co-design.

But an increasingly influential group of philanthropists, foundations, corporate funders, and impact investors is looking for something different.

They may want to help shape the response to a problem rather than fund a pre-existing program. They may be willing to support experimentation but expect rapid learning in return. They may contribute expertise, technology, data, networks, or commercial capability alongside money. They may use grants, loans, guarantees, equity or combinations of capital. And they may be more committed to a cause or outcome than to any particular institution.

The OECD describes venture philanthropy as a high-engagement, longer-term approach combining tailored finance, organisational support, and active impact management. Recipients are treated as partners, with financial support accompanied by expertise and capability building. The emphasis is not simply on funding more activity, but on testing, learning, and finding pathways to greater impact.

This is no longer a fringe idea. The European Venture Philanthropy Association has become Impact Europe, explicitly shifting its emphasis from the mechanics of venture philanthropy towards the broader goal of investing for impact. That change of name tells its own story: what began as an alternative funding model is becoming part of a much wider continuum of philanthropic and impact capital.

The language has evolved. The underlying direction has not.

Australia’s changing donor landscape

There are signs that this shift is becoming increasingly important in Australia.

The Australian Tech Giving Report 2025, produced by StartGiving and the Centre for Social Impact at UWA, offers a particularly interesting signal. According to its findings, technology founders are giving earlier, giving differently and seeking greater involvement in understanding and creating impact. Drawing on Australia’s Philanthropy 50 lists, the report found that grants from technology founders grew from 1% of giving by the country’s top 50 philanthropists in 2018–19 to almost 21% in 2023–24.

This matters for reasons beyond the amount of money involved.

Many technology entrepreneurs have built their businesses by identifying problems, testing solutions, learning quickly, and scaling what works. It would be surprising if they abandoned that mindset when approaching philanthropy. They are likely to bring expectations shaped by innovation: direct access to decision-makers, clear evidence, openness to iteration and an ability to move when an opportunity emerges.

Generational change reinforces the trend. Research highlighted by Philanthropy Australia in 2025 found that emerging donors place a high value on alignment between their values and the organisations they support. They want evidence of effectiveness and may be less inclined to give through loyalty or inherited relationships alone.

Meanwhile, the boundaries between philanthropy, corporate social investment, and impact investing continue to blur. Philanthropy Australia has reported growing interest in impact investing while also identifying familiar barriers: limited knowledge, capability, and resources, as well as a lack of suitable opportunities.

The capital is becoming more varied. Donor expectations are becoming more active. The funding approaches are becoming more flexible.

Yet many of our institutional structures and processes remain designed for the conventional gift.

The readiness paradox

Here is the paradox.

Many universities, charities, cultural institutions, research organisations, and other purpose-driven organisations say they want innovative, transformational philanthropy. But their internal systems are often designed to make such partnerships extraordinarily difficult.

An opportunity may originate with advancement but depends on research, finance, legal, governance, commercialisation, data, communications, and executive leadership. Each area may have legitimate concerns and established processes. Few may share the same definition of the opportunity, the risk or even the intended outcome.

I experienced this firsthand while managing partnerships with BHP at The University of Western Australia and Rio Tinto at The University of Queensland. These relationships never belonged neatly within one part of the university. They crossed academic, executive, and corporate boundaries, and many people had a legitimate stake in their success. What they needed was a clear point of coordination, disciplined stewardship, and a way for the institution to act as one.

At both universities, we convened regular executive forums that brought together leaders from different parts of the company and the institution. The purpose was not to diminish anybody’s ownership. It was to create shared visibility, resolve issues early and ensure that the relationship served the strategic interests of both organisations rather than becoming a series of disconnected transactions.

Where the coordination is absent, the pattern is familiar. I know it well.

Decisions take months. Internal ownership remains unclear. The donor receives different messages from different parts of the institution. Nobody knows who has authority to negotiate. Measures of success are added after the initiative has been designed. Questions about intellectual property, risk, evaluation, and sustainability emerge late. An opportunity that requires institutional imagination is forced through processes created for transactional funding.

The donor may be ready to invest in innovation. The institution is ready to process a gift.

These are not the same thing.

And this is why the next frontier in philanthropy may be less about fundraising technique than organisational readiness.

A proposal is not an investment proposition

The distinction matters.

A fundraising proposal usually explains why an existing initiative deserves support. An investment proposition goes further. It must explain the problem being addressed, why the institution is well placed to respond, what is known and what is uncertain, what will be tested, how decisions will be made, what success will look like, and what happens if the initial assumptions prove wrong.

It must also identify what each party brings.

The institution contributes far more than a charitable purpose. It may bring research, evidence, specialists, facilities, community relationships, legitimacy, and the capacity to translate an idea into sustained impact.

The funder may contribute far more than money. It may bring expertise, patient capital, commercial discipline, networks, technology, and a willingness to absorb risks that conventional funding will not.

The opportunity lies in bringing those assets together around a shared purpose.

But genuine partnership is more demanding than donor cultivation. It requires the institution to know where it can be flexible, where it cannot compromise, who has authority, how learning will be shared, and how the voices of people affected by the work will shape the response.

That is an institutional capability, not an advancement function.

What readiness actually requires

In my experience, readiness begins with five connected conditions.

Purpose clarity. The organisation must understand the problem it is trying to solve and why it is positioned to contribute. Without that clarity, donor enthusiasm can pull an institution towards attractive funding rather than meaningful impact.

The right people around the table. Advancement may open the relationship, but it cannot sustain a complex partnership on its own. Executive sponsors, subject-matter experts, and colleagues responsible for finance, legal, risk, implementation, and evaluation need to be engaged early enough to shape the opportunity, not merely approve it at the end.

Partnership capability. Co-design is not another word for allowing the funder to decide. It requires clear roles, honest expectations, shared principles, and the ability to work through disagreement. Communities and intended beneficiaries must also have meaningful influence over solutions that affect them.

Appropriate philanthropic and financial architecture. A grant may be the right instrument, but it may not be the only one. Organisations need sufficient financial fluency to consider staged funding, recoverable grants, guarantees, matched capital, impact investment, and other approaches without allowing novelty to substitute for suitability.

Performance and learning. Venture-oriented funders expect evidence, but complex social change does not always produce quick or easily attributable results. Institutions need measures that support learning and accountability without reducing impact to what is easiest to count.

None of these conditions can be manufactured in the final weeks of a solicitation. They must exist before the opportunity arrives.

Readiness does not mean surrendering control

There is an important caution here.

Becoming ready for more engaged philanthropy must not mean becoming more compliant with powerful donors’ wishes.

The original philanthrocapitalism debate drew attention to the democratic tension created when private wealth shapes public priorities. That concern is even more relevant when a funder wants to co-design programs, influence delivery and participate in decisions.

Institutional readiness must therefore include the readiness to say no.

No, if the proposed work sits outside purpose and strategy. No, if evidence is being ignored. No, if communities are excluded from decisions. No, if academic or organisational independence is compromised. No, if the institution inherits an initiative it cannot sustain it after the initial funding ends.

The objective is not to become faster at accepting money. It is to become better at determining which partnerships can create legitimate, sustainable impact, and then capable of delivering them well.

That distinction separates institutional readiness from donor accommodation.

The question leaders should be asking

For boards and executive teams, the practical questions are becoming difficult to avoid.

If an unconventional philanthropic opportunity arrived tomorrow:

• Would we know who should lead the institutional response?
• Could we bring the necessary people together quickly?
• Do they share an understanding of our purpose and strategic priorities?
• Could we assess different forms of capital and risk?
• Are our governance and delegations suited to experimentation?
• Can we measure progress while adapting when evidence changes?
• Have we established boundaries that protect independence and community voice?
• And could we sustain the work or responsibly conclude it when the initial funding ends?

If the answer to most of these questions is uncertain, the problem is not a shortage of prospects. It is a readiness gap.

From fundraising readiness to institutional readiness

For decades, organisations have invested in campaign readiness: the case for support, prospect pipeline, leadership, volunteer structure, systems, and fundraising capacity required to pursue a financial goal.

Those disciplines remain essential.

But the emerging environment asks for something broader. Institutions must be ready not only to raise capital but also to deploy different forms of capital, share risk, work across internal boundaries, learn in real time, and collaborate with funders without being directed by them.

This is not simply the next fundraising trend. It is a test of purpose, people, partnerships, philanthropy, and performance across the whole organisation.

When we hosted those early conversations at UWA Business School, the question was whether a new kind of philanthropist could help change the world.

The question now runs in both directions.

Our institutions have spent considerable time asking whether donors are ready to support ambitious change. Perhaps it is time to ask whether our institutions are ready to achieve it with them.

References

• Australian Environmental Grantmakers Network. (2025). The $5.4 Trillion Question: How Are Young Donors Reshaping Philanthropy?
• Bishop, M. and Green, M. (2008). Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save the World. Bloomsbury Press.
• Callis, Z., Feeney, C., Flatau, P., Lester, L., Ruffell, A., Simm, Z., Wildie, G. and Zou, S. (2025). The Australian Tech Giving Report 2025. StartGiving and the Centre for Social Impact, The University of Western Australia.
• Impact Europe. (2024). EVPA Is Now Impact Europe.
• OECD. (2014). Venture Philanthropy in Development: Dynamics, Challenges and Lessons in the Search for Greater Impact. OECD Publishing, Paris.
• Philanthropy Australia. (2024). ‘Engagement and Energy’ in Impact Investing Is Growing.