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Impact Philanthropy

"The results of work in the big cube are often measureable only by small statistical changes and even small changes may take many decades to emerge.”                      - Paul Brest and Hal Harvey, Money Well Spent

For the past 30 years, Ploughshares Fund has diligently tackled a classic “big cube” problem: the global threat of nuclear weapons. As Paul Brest and Hal Harvey write in their seminal guide to philanthropy, Money Well Spent, problems in the big cube are global, life-threatening on a massive scale and difficult to reverse.

Ploughshares Fund developed a new philanthropy model to help us achieve our bold policy goals. Our model – impact philanthropy – consists of three essential steps:

  • develop a strategy with clear goals
  • proactively select grantees and knit them together into a collaborative network
  • commit the foundation's assets to provide leadership and amplify grantees' work

Or, put more simply: strategy, network and leadership.

Like many practicing philanthropy in the big cube, we understand the need to keep our sights set on the horizon while pursuing strategies that make steady progress toward our ultimate goal. We refined this strategy in our successful campaign for New START in 2010, knitting together 50 organizations to win Senate approval of this vital agreement.

Ploughshares Fund is now using our impact philanthropy model to build comprehensive campaigns aimed at winning key policy victories that can unlock a more ambitious strategic agenda.

For each campaign, Ploughshares Fund works with leading experts and advocates to shape concrete goals; recruits organizations that add value to the campaigns and provides forums for grantees to collaborate; and uses our own financial and operational assets to provide leadership, fill in gaps and maximize the impact of the campaigns.

Throughout the campaigns, Ploughshares Fund actively and consistently engages grantees to foster a productive dynamic among a broad range of organizations, and to maintain strategic and tactical unity.

Strategic philanthropy in the “big cube” requires patience, but Ploughshares Fund is committed for the long haul. With each victory, we build support for a world without nuclear weapons, and we lay the groundwork for the next steps.

That, we believe, is money well spent.