# Philanthropies are forced to show consistent short term progress Unless you manage to get a ton of money up-front (as a foundation as opposed to a charity) you need repeated influxes of cash, which usually come with expectations of progress. [[People always spend money for a purpose]]. The progress expectations in the non-profit world often are shorter than in the for-profit world. [[Charities raise money on a yearly or sub-yearly basis]]. When someone makes an investment with a future return, it’s clear that they are buying future money. As long as you trust that in the future you’ll get a return, what happens do your money in an investment doesn’t matter. That concept of buying a future good doesn’t seem to carry over to buying reputation or warm fuzzy feelings, which is what people buy with philanthropy. These short appearance-based feedback loops make philanthropies good at continuous, short term work - directly helping people who need help in obvious ways, but may make them less-suited towards long-term high-risk projects. Arguably, you could say that philanthropy is well-suited towards Type II progress.[[The things that entail type II progress are knowable]]. There are notable exceptions * Foundations that are funded by the proceeds from endowments * [[Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)]] etc. * (speculatively) Organizations that have built enough *trust* through their leadership or previous actions. Warren Buffet’s passing money to the Gates foundation without thinking about what it was for comes to mind. ### Related * [[Innovation orgs need to be aligned with their money factory]] [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Philanthropies+are+forced+to+show+consistent+short+term+progress) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Philanthropies+are+forced+to+show+consistent+short+term+progress)