If you’re a grant maker, you’re probably hoping to make both a short-term and a lasting impact.

No single strategy can ensure that you’ll leave your mark with charitable giving. Impact can encompass the issue area you choose, the organizations you select, how you give and with whom you partner.

Today, we’re seeing clients pursue several strategies to achieve these goals: joining with other donors, understanding the short- and long-term aspects of the issues they care about and deepening their knowledge of the organizations they support.

Here’s how donors are turning to interesting approaches in education, climate change and economic mobility.

Collaborate: The power of joining with other donors

Across the country, we’re seeing many philanthropists partnering with likeminded individuals to scale their effectiveness.

Donor collaboratives are growing in popularity because they allow philanthropists to be more strategic, a recent study found.¹ While aligning with partners takes work, we’ve seen evidence that affinity groups pooling their funds to make larger gifts can have a significant impact.²

We’re also seeing another side of collaboration: between clients and the nonprofits they fund. Meaningful discussions with development and leadership teams are helping philanthropists discover new ways to support these organizations. Sometimes this means adding intentional and frequent conversations to their relationships. Sometimes partnerships produce unexpected learning – for example, an organization may derive an even greater benefit from your human, intellectual or social capital than your financial support. If you don’t ask, you’ll never know.

• Case study: Supporting first-gen college students

After connecting at a college alumni event, four first-generation graduates, all donors to their alma mater, realized they shared a goal: providing students who share similar backgrounds to theirs with financial support to accomplish their education goals.

They found power in numbers by pooling their funds: Their investment grew faster, and their negotiating power with the institution strengthened. And since the donors were well known in their communities and had the collective force of the group, their combined effort gained extra credibility. Others were moved to donate. Through the partnership, they have roughly tripled their impact, reaching more students than they ever expected.

Mitigation and adaptation in a changing environment

One question we hear frequently from clients involved in philanthropy is, “Can I have both short- and long-term impact in an issue area?” The answer is yes, and climate change offers one of many examples.

Climate change adaptation (minimizing harm to communities and nature in the future) and mitigation (tackling the causes of greenhouse gas emissions now) are two areas that donors may find crucial for their support. As climate-related philanthropy has surged in recent years, mitigation efforts focused on the present have received about half of all donations.³ And that short-term work also affects the long term.

• Case study: When an issue impacts the neighborhoods

Concerned about the growing threat of climate change and the pressing need for adaptation, a client, an entrepreneur by trade, established a private foundation to address the issue comprehensively. Its focus: supporting vulnerable communities in developing countries disproportionately affected by global warming. The foundation works through partnerships with local organizations and governments, building resilient infrastructure, providing access to clean water and disseminating climate-resilient farming techniques.

After the first year, when the founder saw her grants producing successes unfolding over a medium-term time horizon, she realized a parallel goal was to seek to mitigate further climate harm in the present. The foundation’s efforts then began shifting toward investments in renewable clean energy projects and technologies to reduce carbon emissions.

Now, several years later, she and her family are funding research and development into clean energy solutions, supporting policy advocacy for renewable energy adoption and promoting sustainable practices in industries such as transportation and agriculture in developing countries.

With this dual approach, short and long term, the foundation is addressing the climate crisis’s immediate impacts and the underlying causes of greenhouse gas emissions, helping to create a more sustainable future.

Historically Black colleges and universities

If you’re like many people, you may thank your education for much of your success. The power of education – especially to create economic mobility – makes it a top giving area for philanthropists.

Across the country, we are witnessing more support being given to educational institutions with track records of creating economic mobility. With that goal in mind, donor funding is growing for historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

HBCUs make up just 3% of U.S. colleges and universities, but have an outsized impact. For example, 80% of Black judges, 70% of Black doctors and dentists and 50% of all Black teachers have graduated from HBCUs in recent decades.⁴ Yet HBCUs receive far fewer donations than the Ivy League. The Ivy League universities received a combined $5.5 billion in philanthropic dollars from 2015 to 2019; HBCUs just 5% of that: $303 million.⁵

After two decades of declining donations to HBCUs, charitable support has risen sharply since 2020.⁶ This includes the JPMorgan Chase Foundation’s five-year, $30 million commitment to HBCUs, expanding on the firm’s Advancing Black Pathways initiative.

• Case study: Building a more equitable future

Jane, a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist, is passionate about the mission of HBCUs and their importance in serving diverse communities across the U.S. Jane’s generous donations fund a variety of activities, including curriculum development, scholarships, mentorship programs and financial education.

Jane’s desired goal is to break down barriers to economic opportunity, address some of the key drivers of the racial wealth divide and help the next generation acquire the tools and resources to get ahead. Her dedication to these causes is evident in the strategic allocation of her wealth to initiatives that foster educational and economic advancement.

Since various HBCUs are located in regions where Jane has established business ventures, she can leverage her business expertise, partnerships, and philanthropic efforts to support low-income, first-generation diverse students and other students of color.

We can help

If giving back is essential to you, your J.P. Morgan advisor can help you in articulating your goals and leaving your mark, on short-term needs and through long-term systemic change.