Coffee Philanthropy

Intro

Coffee brewing is my passion that I pursue as my life-time mastery. Most of us are aware of the the fact that coffee is a complex nuanced topic . However, I was amazed how deep this rabbit hole actually goes. Pursue of this mastery led me to the outcomes and reflections I have never imagined and uncovered. I discovered simple yet profound truths that are universally applicable and able to improve your skills in any endeavour. To me it is the Philanthropy where I found the profound eyeopening similarities and insights applications.

Coffee Brewing

What makes a great cup Coffee ?

People with some degree of experience in manual coffee brewing will list:

• High quality, expensive coffee
• Expensive grinder
• Fancy 300$ Gooseneck kettle
• High-precision scales
• Magical coffee spoons and accessories.

That's what most of us see on the surface. Our consumer logic tell us that all we need is the right equipment and expensive resource, by combining these two we end up with a great outcome. The more is better. The more you invest, the more high quality product you'll get as the result. However, what I found is that all these things, despite potentially are useful and impactful in the overall experience, are not as important as they might look. But before we continue, let's take a look how the same logic and "the more the better" serves us at philanthropy to make the case.

Philanthropy Brewing

What makes great Philanthropy ?

• Commit large sum to a complex topic. "The more the better", as the problem is definitely in underfunding the NGOs (as long as they concern)
• Find the best non-profits
• Paint great vision, long-term strategy and set inspirational metrics.
• Make a big marketing event.

It is what we usually see when wealthy people decide that the time has come to dedicate themselves to a higher cause. Nothing intrisically wrong with this approach, it does work and it does make a difference, saved many lives and I highly appreciate everybody doing so. But that's not the point. It invites a few questions.

• Is it really effective ?
• Is it the most optimal way ?
• Is it the only way ?

This is where coffee metaphor helps us answer those questions and perhaps uncover some hidden truths and wisdom.

To make the case, let's blend these two quite similar patterns of thinking, and apply the Philanthropy approach to Coffee brewing.

To brew the best Coffee we need:

• The best coffee we can get - 1000$ per Kg (medium-high).
• Top grinder - 4000$
• Kettle - 300$
• Scales - 300$
• Accessories - 200$
• Testing equipment - 3000$
• Fund the roaster to purchase the most expensive roasting and test equipment to make the best ever roast. 10000$

Total: 18.800$

The "ultimate-set", that should make the best-tasting coffee in the world and even perhaps win an award. Some would already sense that we also need some experience in brewing. However we approach it from a philanthropic angle Its rarely the case as money are the primary vehicle for impact, while work is mostly outsourced. Some might argue this logic, but this is how I observe the current status quo. I see these two "consumer" approaches are quite similar and most importantly, give us some valuable insights.

What really make a great cup of Philanthropic Coffee ?

Now let's get back to coffee and see where our assumptions of best coffee mislead us. Investing in equipment is indeed makes a difference, but that's not as significant as most can assume. In practice, the most influential factors to the best coffee are:

1. Intentional practice
2. Processes and craft
3. Precision and measurements

Let's break down each of these factors and apply it to philanthropy to see how can we apply.

1.Intentional practice

You can brew millions of cups but won't get too far in terms of the quality without intentional practice. The amount of variables in the coffee are surprisingly large. Starts from the coffee itself, the processing method, the bean variety, region, elevations, heading to more variables in brewing, like grind size, the "just right" freshness (CO2 concentration), the paper load capacity, to the dripper form/height, the temperature, the depth of coffee bed, the roast profile, the water properties (PH and mineral contents), the speed and amount of poures, the form of the gooseneck of the kettle, the agitation and understanding the breaking point, and last, but not least an understanding physics of coffee, like percolation, and particles migration, just to name a few. That's far from the exhaustive list of variables, but that's enough to make the case.

Nothing from the list has the property of "more the better". Every variable is important to some extend. The mix of variables can result in different results and affect the quality of the cup. Interestingly enough, there's no manual, on how to make it right. Thus, the best coffee in the world is only achieved by the continuous intentional practice and mastery, fine-tuning of multiple variables, measuring and re-iterating.

The same principle applies to philanthropy. The best Philanthropy is made thought intentional, long-term practice, multiple iterations with variables adjustments and continuous learning.

It requires:

• Deep understanding of the system at hand
• Pragmatic iterations
• Evidence-based and Data-driven

Key takeaways:

Great philanthropy is brewed through patience, attention and continuous intentional practice.
Delegating those practices to non-profits is the same as delegating your coffee to Starbucks (at best). You'll get a coffee, but you will never know if it is really great. The impact data you will get cannot be confirmed as it always biased towards your expectations.

2.Processes and craft

Having hundreds of variables, brewing coffee is far from being a straightforward process. As I mentioned before, no single component makes all the difference. You can buy the most expensive coffee in the world and ruin it by just on of hundreds of variables. In fact, the process of great coffee starts long before us. Growing and processing coffee is a mastery and challenge of its own. Roasters in sequence, make great efforts to create roast profiles, that takes the best notes and flavours at the forefront for you to enjoy. What we receive is already a product of many masteries and result of meticulous processes. However, it doesn't stop here, now it's our turn to take another hundreds of variables, to appreciate the work and enjoy the intent and effort put into the product.

Philanthropy is very similar. The systems that we're intervening are highly complex and a result of many efforts made to make it work better. Recklessness in processes often leads to disasters. We have countless examples how large sums of money, distributed in the wrong way, create dangerous archetypes of addiction to funds with social system left worse off. Similar to coffee, no matter how much money you have, understanding of the system and careful, well-crafted approach needs to be implemented to preserve the system independence and well-being.

Key takeaways:

Responsible and effective Philanthropy needs well-crafted processes. We needs to remember, that the social problems are highly complex systems with thousands of variables and stakeholders, creating visible and hidden outcomes. What's even more important, is that we're working with people, who's life depends on the outcomes of our interventions. That's why it is crucial to develop well-defined and masterfully crafted processes of interventions.

The best Philanthropy requires:

• Ongoing practice of designing, crafting and implementing processes.
• Understanding all the variables and how they interact and influence the outcomes
• Change one variable at a time
• Listening to the system

P.S You still need an equipment, but not all at once. Mastery will pave the way to the best tools as well as wisdom of humility to use something old that is working well. Same applies to philanthropy.

3.Precision and measurements

Coffee brewing teaches us one important trait - to be very accurate in every action. In Japanese culture there's a phrase Seikukan (正確感), that means "Sence of accuracy". It's embraced through practice of martial arts, where you master precision of movements by mastering your mind.

Philanthropy, with lavish donations, doing the opposite. By flushing the money down the problem, we care less of the accuracy, and more about the scale. More often than not this approach backfires and creates wide variety of unintended consequences, most of which are irreversible.

What is it happening ?

• Due to legal, economical and structural constrains, NGOs are unable to scale up and down quickly, like a tech startup. That creates many bottlenecks and can lead to all kinds of inefficiencies.
• No social problem can be solved with doing more of the same.
• Large amount of funds create gamification, irrelevant metrics measurements, hidden agendas and corruption schemes.
• Social systems overflown with money behave differently only for a duration of the funds.
• More money doesn't mean more impact.

Thus, the best Philanthropy requires more than the money. It requires understanding of where it is appropriate to apply funds leverage. How to orchestrate the work of the network of stakeholders and fund capabilities, to empower system to grow organically, without being overwhelmed.

Key takeaways:

• Identify and accurately apply "just-right" funds to leverage point
• Fund capabilities and ways to connect the existing one.
• Design organic growth
• Collect and process data. Make data-weighted decisions based not only on the amount of measurements from one biased source, but on machine learning models and variety of sources. Funding technology and data insights is the most efficient way to conduct a responsible social interventions
• Fund the system of funding itself. Create economical systems of self-growth and sustainability models, rather than direct influence on the system with force of money.

All that requires dedication, accuracy and attention and this is where true impact is made. My point is not to reduce the funding, but to distribute this funding in a completely different way. It needs more work, but this is the only way we can make a true impact on scale, rather than a few papers with numbers and "Heroic Leadership" article.

In sum:

Coffee teaches us the importance of intentional practice, masterful processes and sense of precision. I'm confident, that by learning and applying these principles to Philanthropy, we can create a long-lasting impact as well as conduct responsible social interventions.

This is the approach we choose to pursue at iPhilanthropist. We support philanthropic endeavours by empowering social investors with deep understanding of the systems, crafting processes and taking pragmatic iterative approach conducting well-designed and responsible interventions with integrity and ethics.

As always, I deeply appreciate your feedback [email protected]