The world needs more (Kevin) Starrs

Public communication and thought leadership is underdone by grantmakers

As a whole, the philanthropy world is fairly untransparent, and thus when people make great discoveries they are often not shared at all. Or when they are shared, they are mixed in with 100 caveats and polite hedges and longform explanations that nearly guarantee they will not be "wrong" but also that they will rarely be read.

And then you have Kevin Starr: "Funders, Do Your !!@%@#! Job."

Direct, funny and important content that people actually read. When Kevin posts something, I tend to hear about it from multiple grantmakers. I get it, it is often awkward to talk about money even in a philanthropy community, and many grantmakers are deliberately a bit mysterious to make targeted solicitation and mercenary NGOs less able to find and game their systems. But Mulago (the regranting body Kevin leads) has lots of impact, and I would argue that a huge percentage of their impact is in affecting and sharing lessons with other grantmakers.

Sometimes this is public writing like the above example; other times it is more community leading, running events or setting up networks (like Big Bang). This is mostly impact that will never show up in Mulago's 990s, and many foundations do not think of this as a vehicle for impact. But with so many grantmakers keen to learn and relatively few resources out there, it is low-hanging fruit for impact.

It’s not just Kevin

Some other grantmakers do a great job of this Open philanthropies animal newsletter is a totally different style but also adds huge value to its area. It’s not about the content. I would even take an opposite Kevin who publicly and entertainingly makes the case for the exact opposite points (although I am not sure what a post "Funders, Don't Do Your !!@%@#! Job" would be about). My point is less about the exact writing and more about the process of being transparent with what you really think and expressing hard truths.

I do not think this sort of writing is perfect for every foundation, but if 1 in 20 tried their hand at writing in a more public venue (e.g., once a month on SSIR or Substack), I think the whole ecosystem would benefit greatly from the lessons shared, terminology created, and debates being made public.

You do not need to be a great writer

I used to have this friend who was a great writer (much better than me), and we would have these long conceptual chats about the NGO world and how to make an impact. Afterwards, he would write up a quick blog post using ideas and concepts we co-created. This was ideal for me as I was more of a speaker than a writer, and importantly, the ideas got out there. But this setup could work at scale. Organizations like Worldshapers, who I am using to help me publish a book, are built around this idea. Ghost writers are pretty cheap (~£30k) by philanthropist standards. Generally, philanthropy teams do not need everyone to be great at writing; one person willing to try their hand at it can often share the ideas of the whole team.

A way of scaling this even further could be using events. I think a useful way to run events could be having a few writers there deliberately keeping an ear out for great ideas that get talked about but not written about (there are always tons at events). Most of the fuel I get for this blog is from talking to others in the space and then later hammering the ideas into something a bit more formed for public consumption.

It also does not have to be written content—going on a podcast, for example, does the job just as well (here is an example of that by the Navigation Fund and their grantmaking in the animal space).

In conclusion

If you are a grantmaker, seriously consider writing something publicly, going on a podcast, or otherwise sharing your lessons learned. You could likely save other grantmakers from making the same mistakes and reinventing the wheel, helping us all create more impact long term.