[Teresa Crawford]

Don’t Feed the Zombies – When funders aren’t accountable for impact, it ruins the party for everyone.

Recent article in SSIR by Kevin Starr who directs the Mulago Foundation and the Rainer Arnhold Fellows Program.

We’ve [funders] failed to create a functional market for impact, which means that money doesn’t flow efficiently toward those most able to create change. Zombies don’t die. They devour precious resources that should go to the living. We accomplish only a fraction of what we could.

Of course, nobody thinks they’re feeding—er, funding—zombies, but if we weren’t, they wouldn’t be there. Luckily, there’s a pretty simple way to keep your portfolio zombie-free: Don’t fund anyone who doesn’t do a credible job of determining their own impact. An organization that doesn’t determine its own impact is flying blind and you will be too.

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