Investing for Social Change: A Literature Review

Social change philanthropy specifically invites people to invest in transforming some component of their world for the better. The history of philanthropy clearly demonstrates that such investments produce significant change in broad social, political, and institutional landscapes. Among other things, grants have fueled advocacy and legislative change, provided direct services of all sorts, and contributed to improvements in human security in categories such as health, education, housing, and economic equity. In addition to grantmaking, funding institutions have broadly invested in such areas as research, education, and capacity building among their grantees. In spite of the visible changes resulting from these investments, the development of tools and processes for identifying and measuring the changes as they unfold has failed to keep pace. Philanthropists know that their investments have had significant impact because they can look back at the history of their efforts and the outcomes they produced. But they require more expertise at systematically building the body of evidence that will enable them to project this history forward. Their grantee partners know that their work was important, but need training in the methods that will enable them to capture the results of their actions. The goal is to develop the ability to (a) articulate how social change investments and activities toda