3You Respond Too Slowly
If you've seen the movie Zootopia, you might recall the scene in which the two main characters, a fox and a rabbit, head to the Department of Mammal Vehicles to learn about a missing otter. Rushing in, they are horrified to discover the DMV is staffed by sloths! What follows is a painfully funny exchange with the slow-moving sloth employee. A transaction that should take three minutes instead takes the entire day. Day turns into night before they get the information they need.
Philanthropists are just like those sloths. They respond too slowly. And it's just as painful to watch.
In philanthropy, slowness is a problem because people's lives are at stake. The environment is at stake. A community in crisis is at stake. If philanthropists genuinely believe they can help change the world—as you do—they should hurry up and get on with it!
Instead, here's what typically happens. A town floods, but a local foundation can't make an emergency grant to the Red Cross without full board approval, and the board doesn't meet again for four months. An entrepreneur creates a donor-advised fund following the sale of her business (and collects a tax deduction in the process) but is too busy to make donations from it. A corporate foundation proudly puts its new strategic plan on its website, but 18 months later has not begun implementing it.
Why are philanthropists so slow? By far the biggest reason is lack of external accountability. One form of external accountability ...
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