Beyond Grants Research: A Snapshot of Non-Grant Capital Deployed by Philanthropic Funders

INTRODUCTION

Philanthropic funders are increasingly moving beyond traditional grant making toward more flexible and sustainable capital deployment. This is both to meet the demand of new business models by their grantee partners, and also to help make their investments go farther. While still under-utilized and inconsistent, non-grant capital is evolving into a core component of modern philanthropic strategy.

To capture the current state of this trend, I worked with AI tools to examine:

1.The universe of philanthropic organizations using non-grant capital

2.The extent to which these organizations are deploying non-grant capital

3.What type of capital is being deployed (ie recoverable grants, guarantees, recycled capital, low interest loans, etc.)

I analyzed a dataset of 381 organizations and found that more than 200 of them were not actively providing non-grant capital OR were purely impact investors. I was therefore left with 115 that I could look to as examples of philanthropic funding organizations making repeatable non-grant investments in their grantee partners’ work.

This summary is meant to provide a snapshot of that data, lay out several case studies, and highlight the role catalytic capital is playing in philanthropy.

You can read more and download the brief HERE.