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Most philanthropy optimises for impact per dollar. Very little optimises for problem non-recurrence.
The most frustrating experience in philanthropy is watching a problem you "solved" return—often worse than before.
This is not failure to execute. It is success that doesn't persist.
Funding follows problems reactively. Problems "solved" return because the conditions that created them remain.
Problems spike, get "solved", then return worse—because relief does not change underlying conditions
"A grant is capital that begins dying the moment it is deployed."
Traditional philanthropic capital is structurally designed to disappear:
Grants have end dates by design
Must apply again each cycle
Overhead goes to demonstrating impact, not creating it
Nothing remains after the grant ends
Grants decay exponentially after deployment. Regenerative capital stays in the system and compounds.
After 10 years: grants retain ~1% of value; regenerative capital has grown 80%
There is nothing wrong with relief—it saves lives. But relief alone creates dependency, not capacity.
Impact decays to zero
Impact compounds over time
Different philanthropic approaches produce different impact profiles over time.
Regenerative approaches trade immediate impact for sustained system change
Regenerative capital is not about returns. It is about capital that stays.
The goal is not to extract profit from beneficiaries. It is to create capital structures where:
Capital leaves via repayment + interest
Capital disappears on deployment
Capital stays and compounds
When viewed through a regenerative lens, familiar philanthropic frustrations become legible:
"Why do problems keep coming back?"
Because capital was extracted, not recycled
"Why can't grantees sustain themselves?"
Because grants are designed to end
"Why doesn't impact scale?"
Because relief doesn't change conditions
"Why is overhead so high?"
Because compliance extracts from capacity
This research program offers foundations and philanthropists:
Distinguish relief from regeneration in your portfolio
Structure grants that don't decay on deployment
Measure whether problems actually stay solved
Create conditions where good outcomes are self-sustaining
Without extracting returns from beneficiaries
To be clear, this is not:
This work assumes philanthropy is irreplaceable. It asks: how can philanthropic capital be structured so its effects persist beyond its deployment?
If this resonates with your experience, there are three ways to continue—depending on what you want to solve:
Perpetual Social Capital: How non-extractive capital stays and compounds
Institutional Learning Architecture: Why learning compounds—or doesn't
Architectures of Ease: How to make good behaviour the easiest path
If you are looking for:
This work will challenge you.
If you want to understand why your best efforts keep requiring repetition,
you are in the right place.