There’s a trend in philanthropy to treat the act of giving as an “investment decision”. This is partly because non-profit management is taught increasingly in business schools, and partly because more wealthy donors with a business background are are becoming involved.

Donors are younger, more active and may have made their money in finance. They believe, as I did until a couple of years ago, that there is a holy grail of metrics, and if we just worked harder to find it, we could measure all non-profits, lay them side by side and figure out which ones were more effective in doing good in the world.