This book highlights the historic inflection point we are in, both in terms of philanthropy in general and specifically in financing solutions to our most urgent social and environmental problems. It covers two movements that have recently influenced capitalism. First, wealthy millennials have pressured their bankers to invest family portfolios in companies with high social and environmental impact (ESG ratings), triggering a wave where the wealth management industry and now all public companies are adapting to the demand for good. Second, The Giving Pledge has changed what success and wealth accumulation mean, as more than 230 billionaires have pledged to give half or more of their wealth away.

The book also focuses on the bottleneck problem The Giving Pledge created. It is very hard to give away hundreds of billions with measurable impact to nonprofits lacking long-term plans to scale. Nonprofits have never had the resources for the planning, management training, and systems needed to expand rapidly, making large gifts difficult to take in or justify. The Giving Pledge signers often want visible impact beyond capital campaigns or endowments, but giving rates remain small while wealth continues to grow.

Finally, it covers the rise of large giving vehicles, modeled after private equity, with third-party managers deploying funds and supporting management teams. It explores scaling nonprofits (“Big Bets”) and investing large philanthropy through for-profits as Philanthropic Private Equity. This book is for nonprofit and foundation leaders, wealth managers, estate attorneys, philanthropic advisors, investors, and CEOs looking to access large pools of philanthropic capital to increase their impact. It provides a step-by-step guide for making large philanthropic investments, showing how approaches like Philanthropic Private Equity can help solve pressing challenges. The second edition includes a plan to use these concepts to address America’s housing crisis.