We view our donations as investments and want to make sure that we have high philanthropic returns on our money. So another big question we wrestle with is how to measure those returns. It’s much easier to measure efficiency in a business by seeing how much its revenue exceeds its cost. Because of this, we developed an attraction to sustainable social enterprises. Still, I saw that so many philanthropic investments could pay off economically as well as socially, and it tormented me that our society passes them up.
