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MacArthur Foundation - Relevance Resilience Resolve
webCredibility Rating
4/5
High(4)High quality. Established institution or organization with editorial oversight and accountability.
Rating inherited from publication venue: MacArthur Foundation
This MacArthur Foundation piece is tangentially relevant to AI safety insofar as it describes philanthropic strategy frameworks that may inform how foundations like MacArthur fund AI governance or safety initiatives, but it does not directly address AI safety topics.
Metadata
Importance: 18/100press releasecommentary
Summary
A MacArthur Foundation perspectives piece outlining a strategic framework for achieving large-scale philanthropic impact through three core principles: relevance (addressing the most pressing issues), resilience (sustaining efforts over time), and resolve (maintaining commitment despite setbacks). The piece reflects on how major foundations can structure their grantmaking and strategy to drive meaningful societal change.
Key Points
- •Relevance requires philanthropic efforts to stay closely aligned with the most urgent and impactful societal challenges.
- •Resilience emphasizes building adaptive capacity to sustain long-term efforts in the face of changing conditions.
- •Resolve reflects the importance of institutional commitment and willingness to stay the course on difficult problems.
- •The framework is intended to guide large-scale philanthropic strategy aimed at systemic, durable change.
- •Offers a model for how major funders can assess and prioritize where to concentrate resources for maximum impact.
Cited by 1 page
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| MacArthur Foundation | Organization | 65.0 |
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# Relevance, Resilience, and Resolve: Keys to Impact at Scale
January 30, 2025[Perspectives](https://www.macfound.org/whatsnew/latest-news?content_type=perspectives)[Impact Investments](https://www.macfound.org/programs/field-support/impact-investments/)
Debra Schwartz, Managing Director, Impact Investments, discusses how long-lasting solutions require flexible, tailored, and durable investment approaches.
How should the fields of philanthropy and impact investing think about scale?
Scaled solutions, which can refer to the depth, breadth, scope, or size of an effort and the impact it produces, are essential given the challenges our world faces. Yet, the topic of scale can be both buzzy and fuzzy within strategic grantmaking and impact investing.
For over 40 years, MacArthur has worked to fuel positive social, environmental, and economic change by [harnessing the power](https://www.macfound.org/programs/field-support/impact-investments/) of financial capital. Based on this experience, we see three interrelated factors that help drive meaningful impact at scale: relevance, resilience, and resolve.
In different ways, these factors are present in the programs, institutions, innovations, markets, and fields that deliver results and lasting progress. In challenging or uncertain times, these same factors can help safeguard past gains and bolster future progress.
## Relevance
When aiming for scale, it is important to recognize that one size does not fit all. For example, a program, institution, or network with the potential for significant impact in a rural region, like [Invest Appalachia](https://investappalachia.org/), will have a different approach, size, and composition than an urban-based effort, like the [GroundBreak Coalition](https://groundbreakcoalition.org/) in the Twin Cities. Both are ambitious, collaborative, and place-based, but each is sized and tailored to their goals and location.
Sometimes scale happens through a network, partnership, or collaboration, rather than a single organization. [Press Forward](https://www.pressforward.news/), for example, is a collaboration of more than 70 donors to help reinvent and revitalize local news, a bedrock of democracy. The [Catalytic Capital Consortium (C3)](https://catalyticcapitalconsortium.org/) is a growing community of practice supported by a new cohort of new funding partners committed to catalytic capital field-building across imp
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