Fluxx | Philanthropy and nonprofit technology news.

SunTrust Bank and BB&T Corporation (one of the largest banking corporations in the United States) completed a massive merger to form Truist on Dec. 9, 2019. This merger brought with it the need to meld both philanthropic agendas of the two banks, and within the same month, the Truist Foundation was born. Then came the global COVID-19 pandemic.

“The financial inequities that faced historically excluded communities were laid bare by the pandemic. We knew that it was crucial for us as an institution to be part of the catalyst to help build that generational wealth and do the hard work of advancing an economy that better serves everyone,” said Lynette Bell, president of the Truist Foundation. “So as the philanthropic arm of a financial services institution, we recognized that it was our responsibility to take part in that difficult work – and we wanted to sharpen our grantmaking in that process.”

Despite being a worldwide trillion-dollar industry, philanthropy doesn't garner the same media coverage as say, the technology sector. But with so many new billionaires entering the funding space, and billionaires renewing their focus on environmental and societal causes, you’d think we’d be seeing more mass media news coverage. So where are the hard-hitting, deep-dive industry articles and why might they be difficult to come by outside of trusted philanthropy trade publications?

Enter Teddy Schleifer, Founding Partner of the new media company, Puck. Prior to Puck, Teddy covered money, influence, and billionaire philanthropy for Recode, which is owned by Vox. At Recode Teddy delved into crypto giving, Elon Musk’s charity sending sprees, Jeff Bezos philanthropic, and everything in between. But more importantly, his coverage isn’t just about the gifts, but the motive behind it, and the quiet power that drives one of the world’s largest economic powerhouses.

“The most useful and influential people… are those who take the deepest interest in institutions that exist for the purpose of making the world better.”
Booker T. Washington

It’s autumn. Change is in the air. Thus, no better time to announce the evolving nature of our own path here at Fluxx!

In Fluxx’s journey to innovate as a company and platform, our North Star must always be to support our community’s evolution in grantmaking practices, paving the (technology) path to bring scale and visibility to their impact. We see a world where funders and grantees build collectives, collaborating in real time over an open structure of knowledge. To make this a reality, it has been - and always will be - critical to partner with people and organizations of like mind in both our mission and values.

We are therefore excited to make an investment announcement, in line with exactly those objectives: Fluxx has been acquired by private equity investor Metamorph Partners.

We know that Grants Management Systems (GMS) help grantmakers accelerate their impact, improve relationships with grantees, and unlock the power of data for reporting and decision making.

We also know that many organizations are stuck in outdated systems—or are manually tracking everything through an ad hoc process using email and spreadsheets—which means that too many grants professionals are spending countless hours tracking down information, searching through disparate documents, and manually moving the work forward.

To help Grants Administrators and Grants Managers advocate for new technology, we teamed up with our friends at Grantbook to build a simple guide.

Today, there are a lot of ways to approach philanthropy. You have the traditional models: your generational family foundations, private funders, and nonprofits. Then you have the newer models of giving circles, social impact groups, corporate giving, and crowdfunding. And somewhere between all that sits B1G1: Business for Good.

B1G1 is the brainchild of Masami Sato. It’s a global giving movement centered around the buy one give one model. The organization connects purpose driven businesses that want to make a difference with meaningful giving activities around the world. So that every time consumers make a purchase in their day-to-day lives, a brand donates a product or portion of proceeds to important world causes. The membership community currently comprises of +2,500 businesses who have collectively donated over $240 million to date.

Philanthropy is chalked full of legacy institutions, historic processes, and more than its fair share of bureaucracy. So it’s no surprise that the industry as a whole is considered to be a slow adopter of technology, even though improved SaaS processes are known to lead to sector growth. In fairness, the slow adoption often isn’t due to the lack of interest, but rather a lack of funds. A nonprofit attempting to operate under an unrealistic overhead ratio isn’t going to push for expensive new products and platforms, and neither will smaller funders.

But this isn’t the case for industry giant, the MacArthur Foundation. The innovative Chicago funder and Fluxx client we know and love has spent years carving space for technologists to have a seat at the table so the Fund could in turn work as a collective to answer questions including: how can we improve the grantee process for all? How can we save our team time? And how can we leverage technology to solve the problems faced by our communities?

All of the above questions and much more are answered on this week’s Untapped Philanthropy podcast as Fluxx co-founder Kerrin Mitchel sits down with a friend of the podcast and CIO of the MacArthur Foundation, John Mohr, to learn more about his role at MacArthur, his work toward a universal common application, and his advice for current and aspiring technologists and CIOs in philanthropy.

At Untapped Philanthropy we spend a lot of time analyzing the Tech for Good industry, the funder experience, and exploring how funders can democratize philanthropy in order to build a philanthropic collective that better serves our communities. For this special episode of the podcast, we turn our gaze to nonprofits and one of its industry experts.

Most people think of philanthropy as a niche, feel-good space supported by simple donations rather than the massive global market that it is. A market that continues to affect policy and change millions of lives worldwide. The nonprofit space currently encompasses an impressive 2.1 percent of the total U.S. GDP, mobilizing over 1.5 million nonprofit and funder organizations, and $410 billion of investments in the social sector.

It’s no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic led to an outpouring of funder support. Major funders worldwide quickly loosened their grant restrictions, eased reporting requirements, and leveraged new technology tools and platforms to give more freely in the hopes of sparing their grantees from impending financial catastrophe.

This week Fluxx co-founder and host of the Untapped Philanthropy podcast, Kerrin Mitchell, sits down with funder technologist, futurist, (and former Fluxxer) Sam Caplan, to explore the accelerated change of funders and technology. Together they examine the role technology must play in building more equitable giving communities and discuss the role technologists play in driving change.