These Key Tech Trends Will Shape Philanthropy In 2020

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Philanthropy isn't known for operating at startup speed. Societal, economic and environmental change can take years, and new challenges seem to pop up just when something else is resolved. That said, philanthropy is a massive trillion-dollar industry, and it's not immune to the big technology trends sweeping the nation.

With this in mind, I examined the year ahead and considered the two industries that have shaped my life and career: philanthropy and technology. When you factor in the major events that will occur in 2020 (including the upcoming census and presidential election), three key trends — and therefore, three key predictions — for tech and philanthropy emerge. These trends will continue to shape how we approach philanthropy in 2020 and for years to come.

1. More organizations will converge as one to tackle big problems.

In the past decade, grant-makers (or those who hold philanthropy's purse strings) have focused on leveraging technology to better measure, manage, understand and report on philanthropy's true impact. The industry began to analyze itself and ask difficult questions about what kind of tangible change was being brought forth per grant and whether or not funders were doing enough to support the nonprofits that enacted change each day.

The answer was both simple in theory and complex in execution: Philanthropy would have to work harder to be more transparent and collaborative in order to see true change.

In other words, if funders and impact investors hoped to maintain and support their missions, they were going to need to combine funds and provide nonprofits with tools to work better as well as further collaborate with government and corporate giving programs to solve the world's problems.

Organizations like the JPB Foundation in New York City are leading by example, employing a hub model that recognizes complex social issues cannot be solved by single players alone, but rather require a host of like-minded organizations working in concert toward a single goal. To achieve this, the JPB Foundation employs a collaborative model in which it funds a "hub organization" or "anchor" and then funds a network of surrounding organizations that work together to pool resources, deploy knowledge and create a more effective and supportive ecosystem.

From:forbes.com