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Spreading donations across many causes feels generous, but Jean-Pierre Conte argues in a recent Forbes Business Council column that it often produces less impact than a narrower, more strategic approach. Conte, founder and managing partner of his family office, Lupine Crest Capital, makes the case that philanthropic capital works best when it follows the same discipline as any other significant financial commitment.
In his first piece of advice, giving is best aligned with causes that match a donor’s actual expertise and passions, rather than distributed in smaller amounts across unrelated organizations. Conte argues that concentration allows a donor to develop real understanding of a field, which in turn improves the quality of decisions about where the money goes.
Depth Over Breadth
The column frames this as a direct parallel to how businesses allocate capital. A company generally doesn’t fund every plausible opportunity that crosses its desk. It commits resources where leadership has genuine insight and can evaluate results credibly. Conte argues donors should hold themselves to the same standard rather than treating breadth of giving as a virtue on its own.
That focus also makes due diligence more practical. An organization’s leadership and track record can be assessed far more accurately by a donor with deep familiarity in one area than by a donor spreading attention across a dozen unrelated causes.
Focus as a Discipline, Not a Limitation
Conte anticipates the concern that narrowing giving to one or two causes means turning away worthy requests elsewhere. His response is that no donor, however wealthy, can evaluate every cause with real rigor, so the choice isn’t between broad giving and narrow giving but between narrow giving done well and broad giving done without the scrutiny any of it deserves. Framed that way, focus becomes a form of respect for the causes chosen rather than a limitation on generosity.
Measuring Whether It Worked
Conte’s approach culminates in a recommendation to identify organizations where a donor can have outsized impact, then track whether that impact is actually materializing over time. He points to his own involvement with Sponsors for Educational Opportunity San Francisco as an example of staying engaged with an organization’s performance rather than stepping back after an initial gift.
Outsized Impact Requires a Baseline
Identifying where a donor can have outsized impact, Conte notes, first requires knowing what an organization was accomplishing before the additional support arrived. Without that baseline, there’s no reliable way to tell whether a later improvement in outcomes reflects the donor’s involvement or simply reflects factors unrelated to the gift. Conte treats that baseline measurement as a prerequisite for strategic giving rather than an optional extra step.
The full column and additional commentary from Conte on strategic giving are available through his Forbes Business Council profile and personal website, both linked below.
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