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Capitalism And
Philanthropy

Phillip Fisher's Mission Throttle
is breaking new ground in
the world of giving.

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Allan Nahajewski I Contributing Writer

Capitalism and Philanthropy from page 1

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May 31 . 2012

Mission Throttle began in 2009 to
develop business tools and to brain-
storm ways of creating systematic
and positive change to speed the pace
of assistance to underserved popula-
tions. It is an L3C, a low-profit limit-
ed liability company, a relatively new
legal structure adopted by 14 states
that allows operations dedicated to
social change to make a small nomi-
nal profit as long as their primary
focus is on social impact.
The company is currently focused
on three concepts, beginning with
collaborative business outsourcing.
"This was born from my expe-
rience with the Family Service
Alliance that combined four agencies
originally, three now — Oakland,
Macomb and Starfish Family Services
— which came together to purchase
an IT platform:' Fisher says. "They
each have the same kind of report-
ing requirements. We were able to
save $270,000 by sharing a platform.
Starfish took its savings and hired a
new program officer, increasing its
capacity to serve more people."
The second area of focus is social
investing.
"In philanthropy, we historically
have used only grants to stimulate
capital flow. In 2009, $308 billion
was granted to organizations in our
country:' Fisher says. "Now we're
seeing the advent of mission-related
investing that has the potential to
greatly expand the amount of capital
dedicated to philanthropy"
Mission Throttle's third area of
focus is Web-based solutions, which
taps into the popularity of social
media, encouraging and enabling
people to go online to stimulate con-
tributions from other investors.
Among Mission Throttle's contri-
butions has been to provide funding
to another Michigan-based L3C com-
pany, ardentCause, which is dedicated
to strengthening philanthropic agen-
cies through better use of technology.
The company has deployed a cloud-
based software solution at more than

70 agencies in the past year to help
them more efficiently build capacity
and fulfill their missions.
"We are a for-profit company
with a nonprofit soul: says Kathleen
Norton-Schock of ardentCause, which
employs 11 software developers and
business development professionals.
The Mission Throttle investment is
helping ardentCause add even more
functionality to its CauseEffectz soft-
ware solution.

Social Impact Bonds
Mission Throttle also is support-
ing Third Sector Capital Partners, a
national group taking a leadership
role with a new financial instrument
called the social impact bond. The
concept was formed in Peterborough
in the United Kingdom to address a
serious issue: 78 percent of released
prisoners were returning because of
a lack of support systems.
"If you think about the social cost
of that, it's huge," Fisher says. "A
social impact bond was created to
enable investors to contribute capital
to solve the problem."
The new funding developed low-
income housing, job retraining and
other social services to help released
prisoners get recommitted to the
community. The result: re-entry rates
dropped to 38 percent, and investors
were given a return on their invest-
ment drawn from the shared savings
to society.
"It's a fascinating, new and very
complex financial structure, and now
the social impact bond movement
in the United States is growing very
quickly:' Fisher says. "We've been
talking to the state government about
a social impact bond in Michigan."
Mission Throttle also has invested
in a University of Indiana School of
Philanthropy program to create met-
rics for mission-related investing and
to create a user guide for foundations
interested in pursuing the option as
a way to increase philanthropic sup-
port.

Capitalism on page 14