Anne Marie Burgoyne says:

Non-profits are constantly battling funders who think like buyers, versus builders (or buyers, versus investors), as so many grants are restricted by time, program or geography.  Bornstein shares the success of George Overholser and Craig Reigel at Nonprofit Finance Fund to enable non-profits like College Summit (when Chuck Harris, now at Edna McConnell Clark was on CS's board), VolunteerMatch, Year Up and DonorsChoose.org to raise "philanthropic equity" at various points in their growth cycle.  This episodic money is quite different that the usual hand-to-mouth dollars that non-profit leaders are constantly raising and allows organizations to think about growth and capacity building in bigger and more strategic and sustainable ways.  I was on the VisionSpring board when the NFF team worked with Jordan Kassalow and his team on a capital raise and it made an enormous difference -- helping VS to just sell its millionth pair of glasses this month.