My friend Heather Coleman Trippel, Ph.D. sent me a Forbes piece last week that I haven't stopped thinking about. In it, Cat Ward takes on a growing argument in philanthropy circles: that a "third wave" of American giving is coming, funded by the fortunes being minted at OpenAI and Anthropic. The original case comes from Nan Ransohoff, and Ward pushes back on it. So do I — with one twist. The smartest thing we can do with this money is almost boring: write bigger, unrestricted checks to the organizations already doing the work.
The scale is historic. Where I'd plant my flag is on the how. The instinct is to build shiny new organizations and recruit "tech-caliber talent." I'd argue the higher-leverage move is the opposite of new.
The nonprofit sector isn't empty or short on talent. It's underfunded. There are 1.9 million nonprofits in the U.S., employing one in eleven American workers — and one in five of those workers lives in a household experiencing financial hardship.
We know what works. MacKenzie Scott gave over $26 billion in mostly unrestricted funding to 2,700 existing organizations, and the results were transformative. And the money is already moving the right way. The OpenAI Foundation's new $50 million People-First AI Fund backs trusted local nonprofits, with applications due July 15.
So here's my ask for anyone sitting on this wave. Fund the leaders who already know their communities and never stopped showing up. Make the grants unrestricted, big, and multi-year. That's not the flashy version of philanthropy. It's the one that compounds.
Grateful to Heather for the share, and to Cat Ward for writing it.