After I researched and wrote about risk in philanthropy, I’ve inevitably been affected by Frequency Illusion. In this decision-making bias, an idea or term that has recently come to one’s attention suddenly seems to appear with improbable frequency shortly afterwards.
So, as “bonus content” to my previous posts and the piece I wrote for the National Center for Family Philanthropy, here are good resources on risk I saw in the past 45 days:
- Questions Nonprofits Should Ask to Assess Their Risk Management Practices – an infographic by the consulting firm BDO that would serve as a good guide for staff and board conversation.
- Risk Management for Nonprofits – SeaChange Capital Partners and Oliver Wyman look at fiduciary risk and enterprise risk management through the lens of a study of nonprofits in New York City. The report serves as a sober reminder of how many nonprofits live close to the edge of insolvency.
- 3 Ways Foundations Squash Risk-Taking – philanthropy consultant Kris Putnam-Walkerly describes three areas “in which foundations that want to take more risks unintentionally limit their capacity to do so: planning, practice and policy.”
- Philanthropy Lessons: Risk and Mistakes – an 8:37 video by Exponent Philanthropy with observations about a greater tolerance for risk and experimentation by seven smaller foundations and three grantees.
- Forgetting Failure – June Wang of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation offers good ideas for discussing and learning from failure, risk, andphilanthropic strategies that didn’t go as planned.
OK. That’s it. I’m done with risk as a topic. On to something else philanthropically geeky…
Tony Macklin 