Products I'd like to see

I've worked for years to develop knowledge products that inform philanthropy and leverage financial resources toward solutions. I outlined the possibility of these products in Creating Philanthropic Capital Markets. We provide such products through Blueprint Research & Design now and are developing more.

So its great to see this announcement from the Pioneer blog of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation:

"Pioneer made a grant to FasterCures last year to establish a new program, the Philanthropic Advisory Service, that provides the equivalent of investment-grade analyses for nonprofit medical disease research groups. The idea is taking flight -- FasterCures announced last week that they received a $35 million grant from the Sumner M. Redstone Charitable Foundation, in addition to the $1.4 million they'd received the week before from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

...independent analyses of disease research efforts and impacts will “inform and guide philanthropic support of such research” both in the U.S. and globally. Ultimately, the aim is to leverage increased philanthropic funding toward innovative work that may speed the time from discovery to treatment to cure."

This is what we need more of - foundations sharing their research, in easy-to-use, appropriate ways to leverage "other people's money" toward solutions. Very exciting stuff. I'd love to see samples of the reports, learn how much they cost to create, who the target audience is, how they'll be distributed, etc..

Tags: philanthropy, knowledge