# People always spend money for a purpose Sometimes people spend money to explicitly buy something. Investment is when people spend money to make more money. When people “give away” money they also expect the money to “do” something. [[Most people give money to philanthropy to make themselves look and feel good]] (and sometimes they care about whether the charity executes effectively on what they say they will.) Even when people give away money that’s not theirs, they have an intention attached to it. Either that it will benefit them personally or will benefit “the taxpayer.” It’s important to call this out because if people are spending money for a purpose, it means that they have expectations attached to it. Which means that those expectations both need to be set and they will want to know whether their expectations are being met. The fuzzier the expectations, the tighter the ‘interventionist’ feedback the funder will want. Investments have some of the longest feedback loops because the expectations are incredibly concrete. This leads to the opposite of [[Fund people not projects]]. ### Related * [[Philanthropies can easily become misaligned with their money factories]] * [[Charities raise money on a yearly or sub-yearly basis]] <!-- #stub --> [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/People+always+spend+money+for+a+purpose) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/People+always+spend+money+for+a+purpose)