Social impact organizations are racing to build similar AI tools, pitching for the same small grant money pool. That’s not innovation, it’s potential extinction.
I recently spoke to a donor who reviewed a batch of proposals from different groups—different names, different logos, but nearly the same projects. Teams had reinvented the same wheel in parallel. Individually, some of those projects might get funded. Collectively, the sector missed the chance to pool efforts and solve a larger piece of the problem. That felt wrong, not because anyone was bad, but because our systems make it easier to duplicate than to unite.
Published on September 30, 2025 22:28