Farewell from NPX

We’ve made the difficult decision to wind down NPX, Inc. In doing so, we want to share our key learnings from the past eight years innovating at the intersection of finance and philanthropy.

Overview

We started NPX with the bold vision to transform philanthropy by linking funding with impact. We’re incredibly proud of our accomplishments, including:?

• We developed 3 innovative financial products that explicitly linked funding with impact.?
• We empowered 9 organizations to drive increased impact across issue areas including criminal justice, homelessness services, workforce development, education and financial security in urban and rural geographies across the U.S.
• In partnership with Global Citizen, we built and launched the world’s largest results-based funding opportunity for private philanthropists and five of the world’s largest, highest impact nonprofits.
• We developed the first-of-its-kind impact-based for-profit financing product with broad demand and applicability across the health, sustainability, education, agriculture and financial health sectors.?
• We mobilized ~$25M+ from 100+ donors and impact investors in new, impact-first ways.?
• We increased the understanding, awareness and rigor around results-based funding models.

We intended for 2022 to be the year where we scaled our earlier successes. Unfortunately, despite amazing products that work better than the status quo, happy customers, and measurable impact, donors didn’t embrace results-based funding at scale.?

Grateful for the Pioneers

Before we dive into our learnings, we want to applaud all of the donors, investors and nonprofits who have traveled on this journey with us. We are incredibly grateful for the innovators and pioneers who were willing to disrupt the status quo and demonstrate the possibilities around new ways to fund impact.

Key Learnings

1. Outcomes-based funding works.?

We proved our hypothesis – funding outcomes leads to measurably better results. It incentivizes impact, which drives behavior change and organizational improvement that leads to better outcomes for the people and the planet, faster.??

2. Demand from nonprofits is high.

Nonprofits want large-scale, long-term funding tied to impact. They want to focus on results rather than activities, so they can innovate, improve their programs and consistently deliver better results. They have big, bold, scalable solutions and are ready to be measured and held accountable for delivering outcomes.?

3. Demand from impact investors is also high.?

Investors want investment opportunities that explicitly link financial and social returns (more impact = higher return). All of the deals we launched were oversubscribed and attracted investment capital from a diverse range of investors, including individuals, institutional investors, and private foundations.??

4. Donors did not want to buy outcomes at scale.?

Unfortunately, despite incredible access and the proven benefits of the model, donors did not demonstrate a willingness to buy outcomes at scale. Given the crucial role that donors play in results-based funding, this was ultimately the key challenge that prevented us from delivering on our vision. During the life of NPX we reached over 1,000 potential donors with the capacity to give at scale, including the world’s largest foundations, donor-advised funds, Giving Pledge members, and more. However, this reach didn't convert into outcomes-based donations at scale.?

5. Innovation is still needed: the status quo is insufficient and unacceptable.

The funding challenges that motivated us to create NPX still exist – the world needs new, better playbooks to unlock capital and accelerate impact for people and our planet.? As we worked closely with organizations of all sizes and geographies, we saw overwhelming evidence that the status quo is broken. We have seen proven interventions that lack the funding to scale and funding models that limit high-impact companies (nonprofits and for-profits) ability to innovate and scale. Solutions that can significantly improve outcomes for millions of people exist today.

Our farewell request – keep innovating! We truly hope that everyone will continue to experiment with models that unlock capital and accelerate impact.?

Lindsay Beck & Catarina Schwab

Co-Founders, NPX