The Giving Compass aims to provide an accessible online resource for high net worth donors who are seeking materials on effective philanthropy. https://givingcompass.org/

Project Guiding Questions

How might we create a website where high net worth philanthropists can come to research answers to their strategic questions?

How might we centralize online resources that are vouched for by other high net worth philanthropists and experts?

How might we take what we’ve heard from high net worth philanthropist overlapping journeys and share commonalities in the forms of questions and relevant materials?

Context

Over 50 user interviews in 2015 from the Raikes Foundation Partnership directed us to develop this prototype in 2016. When interviewing active seeker philanthropists, we heard consistent frustration with their difficulty in finding helpful materials to guide their strategy. Active seekers are trying to source the landscape (like articles, books, donor education programs, donor stories, and toolkits among other things) and are motivated to craft an effective plan. Yet, many don’t know where to start or where to go to find resources. They exist, but often only experts know where to find them because they are hosted by authors that produce them. We believe the Giving Compass could help more high net worth donors apply effective philanthropy methods.

Our Target Users

Active Seekers:

Curious, voracious consumers of knowledge who enjoy engaging in solving complex social issues. They seek the resources to help them tackle their philanthropy from a “build-to-learn” perspective and feel confident in their approach and feel like they are applying the appropriate amount of rigor to their work.

Hypothesis

If we provide active seeker donors with the (already existing) resources they need to navigate the donor education space, then they will know where to go to find information, will have relevant information, and will have greater confidence in mapping out their philanthropic strategy.

Prototype