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Philanthropy Consulting

A philanthropy advisory firm for the visionary changemaker

At the Altruist League, we use groundbreaking social change theory, a worldwide analyst network, and state-of-the-art artificial intelligence to build and manage the world’s most impactful philanthropy portfolios through our philanthropy consulting firm.

We partner with carefully selected, visionary investors. They believe that philanthropy is the single most potent force for improving the world, but not just any philanthropy. They see philanthropy is in a crisis, its motives questioned, its results criticised. They believe that if philanthropy is to aspire to relevance, it must change. Our philanthropy services help it do so.

Altruist League members subscribe to a handful of core principles.

  • They are motivated by a belief in a better world, a sense of duty, of leaving a legacy.

  • They believe in tackling the difficult, root problems. Our climate is deteriorating rapidly. Women are still far from equal. Economic opportunity is poorly spread. Racial injustice still lingers. Democracy is under constant threat of corruption and totalitarianism. This must change.

  • They grasp the complexity of these problems, and meet them with diversified portfolios that sow the seeds of real change.

  • They support grassroots-led activist movements around the world, and trust them to do their work.

  • They understand that solving entrenched problems takes hard work and many years.

  • They are aware that real change can’t be measured using old impact metrics.

  • They know that big solutions take coalitions, and are able to build broad alliances with governments, the private sector, international organizations and traditional philanthropy, and inspire and lead those alliances to achieve concrete results.

Our philanthropy services apply the approach of systemic philanthropy

Philanthropists are motivated by the same impulses as is the general population. The majority prefers simple tasks and quick rewards. This is why more of us like uplifting press releases and gala dinners than do supporting research on criminal justice reform. The changemaker’s motivation, in contrast, is intrinsic. This can come from strong core beliefs, a lived experience of a problem, and/or a sense of accomplishment in their life and career, which reduces the need to prove points to others. Their ambition lies in the idea of solving a seemingly intractable problem and/or of building a legacy for the coming generations.

Most of the work of the average foundation is in handling grant proposals, various reports, and oversight mechanisms that mediate the donor-recipient relationship. Most of the work of the systemic investor is in actively sourcing the investment and in evaluating its effects in the real world afterward. In the meantime, the partner organization is left to do what it does best, with little oversight. In essence, this is a trust-based approach. Our philanthropy consulting and advisory help organizations and individuals adopt it.

Activity Traditional Systemic
Investment sourcing
Grantee-driven
Funder-driven (or outsourced)
Commitment
Short-term
Multi-year
Tracking
Reports, supplied by grantee
Changes in the real world, measured by donor
Metrics
Actions undertaken, meetings / workshops held, people reached, awareness raised, social media stats
Membership growth, citations in Tier 1 media, legal cases won, pieces of policy influenced, sentiment changed (in %, measured by surveys) in the local population
Funding decisions
Analysts -> investment committees -> owners / trustees
Kept at the analyst level
Decision-making frequency
Several times per year
Ongoing
Bureaucracy
Grant solicitation and review, committee meetings, formal contracts with grantees, investment impact calculation, formal visits to check progress
N/a

Using the full spectrum of capital in our philanthropy services

Those willing to create systemic change must be versed in all the different ways capital can be deployed to improve the world. The Altruist League believes in systemic philanthropy as the single most potent factor in creating change, but it also advises other actors in the value chain.

Spectrum of capital for systemic change

We advise traditional philanthropists looking to make a portion of their portfolio systemic. They are beginning to familiarize themselves with how change happens, and with the work of its many levers, first of all grassroots movements and the civil society, but also independent media and advocacy groups.

Impact investors take a more transactional view of improving the world, trying to create financial value while creating social one. This philosophy is often cited as the panacea of social change or dismissed as a fad; it is neither – in the hands of the right changemaker impact investing can provide clear value.

The conservative investors beginning to venture into sustainable investing, nudged to do so by their shareholders, customers and the society at large, come to the Altruist League to understand how they could be leading change instead of merely reacting to it. We help them maximize the social value of their investing while making sure they keep their other fiduciary duties.

15 lessons for changemaker philanthropists

Our groundbreaking study on the state of modern activism and the resulting 15 lessons for changemaker philanthropists is out. We thank everyone who participated in the survey, as well as everyone who contributed to writing it.

Download Study
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Building alliances in philanthropy

Philanthropists have to understand the context of their investment. To do this, we must map all the different stakeholders, with their beliefs, incentives and abilities. The worst thing we can do is assume that the environment we are stepping into is a vacuum which we can shape as we see fit.
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The Altruist League uses its unmatched global analyst network and cutting edge artificial intelligence model to craft for its members the best strategies for ESG reporting, sustainable investing and philanthropy with impact. Contact us to find out more.