The New Venture Philanthropy

This chapter explains how a relatively novel concept of venture philanthropy has emerged, evolved, survived challenges and how it is likely to change the business of philanthropy in the foreseeable future. Venture philanthropy changed the direction of donations from marginalized and poor people to ideas and initiations with potential to grow into profitable businesses. Therefore, its contributions are labelled investments rather than donations. This new type of philanthropy emerged in North America first and spread to Europe at the beginning of 2000s. This chapter presents the size and important features of the European venture philanthropy market provided by the European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA) as of 2017. The chapter highlights that the most critical venture philanthropy innovations are the type of target investees (donee), the organizational structure and management, the relationship with the investee, and the impact measurement. The chapter also highlights the role of the organizational structure and management of a venture philanthropic organization and its relationship with the investee are similar to those of a venture capitalist and its investee. While the impact presents itself as a hard to measure element, it is essential for increasing the donations' efficiency. Since other philanthropic organizations are adopting these practices, this review of recent innovations is helpful to increase their efficiency.