Q&A: Bridgespan's US chief urges donors to keep 'doing the hard work'

Known within philanthropy circles for many years, The Bridgespan Group has recently seen its profile raised after advising philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, who has given out billions of dollars in grants since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The group provides research, such as a recent report on global giving to African NGOs, as well as consulting services to donors looking for philanthropic opportunities.

Yet some philanthropy experts have criticized Bridgespan and similar firms for wielding too much influence in donors’ decision-making process and in determining which groups should receive funding.

Last month, Devex sat down with Nidhi Sahni, a partner at The Bridgespan Group and the head of its U.S. advisory services. During her time with the firm, Sahni’s clients have included Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives, the Ford Foundation, Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Women initiative, and The Rockefeller Foundation.

She also has worked with donor collaboratives such as Co-Impact and The Audacious Project. Previously, Sahni was an associate principal for Marakon Associates, a consulting group focused on strategy development for Fortune 500 companies.

While she declined to discuss specifics about Bridgespan’s work with Scott or other donors, citing the company’s confidentiality policy, Sahni provided insights on how the ultrawealthy in the U.S. could be encouraged to give more to charitable causes. She also discussed Bridgespan’s role in the philanthropy sector, as well as how foundations and philanthropic organizations might be pushed to maintain a focus on race and gender equity beyond current reckonings around those issues.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

In a recent interview with the Skoll Foundation, you said you were disappointed to see that giving from U.S. billionaires had only risen by 5% despite a 60% increase in their wealth during the pandemic. Why do you think that is happening, and what might be done to prompt them to give more?

I think there are a number of reasons for why it might be. I think some are process, some are mindset, psychological. The one thing I've been thinking about is that a lot of the increase came in a passive way. Not all of it is realized.

I also think what we've seen is that, unfortunately, there is a mindset shift that needs to happen. There's a lack of urgency because these [global development] problems have persisted, [and] they will continue to persist. That’s coupled with the fear of getting it wrong among some people that haven’t been in philanthropy for a long time.

In some cases, giving is done as a family collective activity as well. And so it requires navigating that dynamic, and that is a slower process. And finally, the infrastructure and the mechanisms that it takes to give large sums of money away has lagged the pace of increase in wealth.

We’re seeing some megadonors shift from establishing foundations to creating limited liability companies with smaller staffs. How is Bridgespan helping these kinds of nontraditional donors?

Each conversation is a unique conversation, as you can imagine. We see a number of donors wanting to get started [with collaborative funds] because it is a way to outsource capacity because they are led most often by people with expertise in issues that are closer to the ground and are closer to the change-makers on the ground as well, especially related to equity. Very often, they are led by women or leaders of color — people that have the lived experience of the issues.

It also allows donors to start their learning with others while they are doing [philanthropic work], as opposed to sequencing the learning and the doing. Collaborative funds are a really exciting component of these portfolios that we've been working with.

Also, a lot of donors start by exploring different avenues. Do they want to fund different issue areas? Are they funding social sector infrastructure or direct services? Once they have a better sense of what they want to do, they start thinking about what are the entities that are best suited. Some might want to set up family offices. Some might want to keep it small, and if they are trying a different portfolio organization, LLCs might be the right option. It really starts with what is the change that they are truly going to effect in the long term.

You’ve previously written about the benefits of collaborative funds. How do you think they are advancing efforts to create more equity within philanthropy and ensuring those are sustained beyond the mostly U.S.-based racial reckoning of 2020?

I think [the killing of] George Floyd was, in the U.S., an important milestone to get people to be aware of inequities that always existed and are really in our society and our systems. I think COVID was another such event, which really kind of took the blindfolds off in some ways. It wasn't new inequities, but it really put the microscope on inequities, whether from gender or caste. We saw a crisis of democracy and humanitarian crises across religious minorities.

The compounding crises over the last few years, I think, have elevated the conversation, which is really important. And now it's about doing, which is the hardest part.

It’s hard to do because it requires unlearning; it requires unlearning the way we’ve done philanthropy. It’s going to require really rethinking who we are funding. I hope people have the stamina to stick with doing the hard work. I’m optimistic. I want to be hopeful, and I’m waiting to see whether action follows the rhetoric and that people change their practices continuously going forward.

How do you respond to criticism that Bridgespan wields too much influence over donors, particularly megadonors, and helps direct giving to groups that the firm has previously worked with?

We are not decision-makers for any of our clients. We are advisers; donors make their own decisions. I think it's really important for people to understand. We let our donors know that as well. We have firewalls internally. We do not share information.

We are a very small, diverse group of colleagues at Bridgespan that come from different sectors. In any relationship that we enter, we are in conversation with people that are close to the ground to learn what they are learning [and] to be able to responsibly communicate what is happening on the ground. So in any situation, we are constantly learning as well from others in a way that, hopefully, gives them credit for it and it's not extractive. And I want to continue to make sure we are doing it in a way that is responsible in the sector.

Bridgespan has opened some offices outside of the U.S. Will it continue to expand in 2022?

We are right now in Mumbai [in India]. We are in South Africa, which covers a large part of the African continent. It’s a large continent, so there is more work to be done, and I’m hopeful we are going to see a lot of growth in our office there as well. We have three U.S. offices. And in the next year, we are planning to continue our global growth. That is a priority for us.

There are regions that we still want to get closer to and where we feel Bridgespan has a role to play. There are also places where we feel it's not responsible for us to go because we do not have the experience yet, we do not have the relationships, and there are others that are better positioned and that we can support from afar as much as it is valuable. For each of the offices, we have done work first to just navigate whether there is a role for Bridgespan in the sector and there is a demand from local organizations in the sector — not just Western organizations.