Photo courtesy of Chase Community Giving
Dalila Wilson-Scott is a Social Citizens Ambassador and Chief Financial Officer of JPMorgan Chase Co., managing its Global Philanthropy initiatives including Chase Community Giving.
Philanthropy is all about taking risks. It's about putting your money where your mouth is—and leveraging your dollars to support your passions. But the risk is enormous: What if the organization you donate to is unable to meet its goal, or worse yet, misuses the money? These are both very real possibilities. Yet the alternative to risk-taking is the status quo—a consequence much worse than failure.
We see it every day. Foundations keep throwing money at the same initiatives--funding the problems instead of the solutions— and yet the problems keep getting bigger. The band-aids can no longer cover the wounds—and arguably never did.
One common way funders try to avoid failure is by playing it safe, pressuring their grantees to deliver reports that aim to outline results and impacts that are difficult, if not impossible, to measure. We want numbers, charts, emotion-filled videos, and boots-on-the-ground analysis that will somehow guarantee us that the money we gave was put to good use.
But the truth is there is no insurance when it comes to game-changing, transformational work. You just do it. Or in the case of foundations like ours: You proactively seek out innovative partners to bring bold ideas to life. Why? Because sometimes not taking risks is a bigger risk than taking them.
That’s what we found out through Chase Community Giving, Chase’s crowd-powered philanthropy initiative. Our goal with this program is not just to support community-based organizations, but to empower the public to activate their passions by voting for charities they care about.
We recognized from the onset with Chase Community Giving that not every charity we support is going to change the world. At the end of the day most charities aren't set out to. But there is plenty of space in the not-for-profit world for small players impacting communities. These are charities that wouldn’t usually be on our radar because of their size. At the same time they are important to us because they are linked to our customers and our communities.
Risk is inherent in every part of Chase Community Giving. By inviting the public to direct our donations, we are outsourcing our ability to drive grant-making decisions. On the flip side is the reward: We are now exposed to thousands of great charities that don’t fit into our typical portfolio--and we’re also able to better understand the causes that are meaningful to the people in our communities.
When you take risks you may lose some money. But you may learn a lot. For every thousand ideas, one could be transformational. It’s the hope of finding that one idea, that one innovation, which truly changes the communities we live and work in that keeps us giving. Without the risk of failure there is no hope.
So, why “be fearless”? Because the alternative is unacceptable.