A basketball court built by all the residents of Bayanga, a village in the Central African Republic is one way travelers were able to give back to a village bordering the Dzanga Sangha rain forest, through the innovative grantmaking approach adopted by a US-based philanthropic foundation that has been pioneering such creativity in giving since 1991.

Travelers donating through the Philanthropic Ventures Fund’s Generosity in Action (GIA) Designated Fund have helped to stock school science laboratories, support a women's sewing collective, and build schools, libraries, wells, playgrounds, in small, remote villages from Burma and India, to Peru, Niger, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.

The fund supports travelers’ enthusiasm to give back to needy villages and people in third world countries, in areas where they travel. Through a close working relationship with local tour operators and guides, projects are monitored to insure completion.Travelers’ donations pay for materials and engineering oversight; the village often provides the labor.

The fund is one of a number of “designated funds”, which allow multiple donors to receive a tax deduction for contributing to a single charitable program, and provide donors with flexibility, enabling them to target support for innovative ideas. PVF manages the fund and prepares financial reports for the program leaders. Such creative approaches to grantmaking and maximizing the impact of philanthropic dollars were behind the creation of PVF in 1991.

“We began Philanthropic Ventures Foundation to do something different — to bring joy, simplicity, trust and effectiveness to grant- making. We knew the answer was not more — more paper, more procedures, more obstacles, more time. And we believed that if giving grants involved fewer, simpler processes, every dollar would work harder and do more.” PVF became widely known in the philanthropic community for putting these ideas into action by creating programs that provided grants within two days of receiving applications.

One example was its program of Teacher Mini-Grants has put $2 million worth of musical instruments, paintbrushes, science kits and classroom resources into the hands of local students. Other innovative approaches include a model Disaster Response MOU Program with 10 San Francisco Bay Area agencies serving the poor, and entrusting outstanding nonprofit leaders and school principals with “paperless” discretionary grants to meet the critical needs of those they serve.

PVF has been modelling such responsive, streamlined, effective grantmaking in the philanthropic community – both by its own work, and by providing advice, support and consultation to other foundations and donors- since 1991. In that time, PVF has given more than $55 million in funding to projects and grassroots organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area and worldwide.

Contact: Philanthropic Ventures Foundation, 1222 Preservation Park Way, Oakland, CA 94612-1201, USA. Email.

This story was prepared from the Philanthropic Ventures Foundation's website. I learned about PVF from a fascinating blog, About Micro-Philanthropy, that keeps me up to date with developments in the fascinating new area of philanthropy known as "micro-philanthropy".

 


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