Image from a Green Templeton College event, illustrating intellectual life at GTC. Not a Strategic Philanthropy Course session.

Our approach
to impact

At Polycapital Academy, we operate at the intersection of strategic impact, psychological sciences (especially positive psychology), and private wealth.

With years of experience working alongside wealth holders, inheritors, and philanthropy and private wealth professionals, we understand their unique opportunities and challenges. 

Understanding effective impact is one thing. Knowing how to realise it is another. This is where we can most help you. We help participants think critically about what “good” looks like and how to best achieve it. We teach participants to assess and compare cause areas using evidence-based frameworks and identify where their specific mix of polycapital creates the most leverage.

We understand that impact work looks different when significant resources come into play. The stakes are higher and decisions can be harder. Our approach is grounded in positive psychology to support participants to build the resilience, self awareness and strong sense of purpose needed to navigate adversity. 

A young woman with braided hair is sitting by a window, reading a book, with her legs crossed on a windowsill. She is wearing a green striped sweater and jeans, and appears focused on her reading. At Oxford University.

Impact purpose

Our impact purpose framework offers you a pathway to identify the cause areas you are best equipped to contribute to, given your unique mix of polycapital, values, and the global priorities of the moment. The concepts, frameworks, and tools we teach are designed for immediate and long term, real-world application.

Venn diagram illustrating the relationship between intrinsic values, global priorities, and polycapital, leading to impact with purpose.
A young woman with long dark hair, glasses, wearing a light-colored sweater, sitting on a brown armchair, writing in a notebook with a pencil. At Oxford University

Impact purpose brings together three key elements

Icon of a globe with two stars connected to it.

Global priorities

These are the most pressing challenges we face today. They are diverse, and we use a structured approach to guide how resources are directed. When assessing and comparing them, we consider three core dimensions to understand where efforts can make the greatest difference:

Scale - the scale of potential improvement in human and non-human lives if the issue is addressed.

Pathway to impact - the extent to which meaningful progress is achievable with additional resources.

Funding need - the opportunity to make meaningful progress relative to existing efforts and resources, taking into account both scale and effectiveness of current approaches.

We have a proprietary Cause Area Prioritisation Tool that allows a direct comparison of a wide range of cause areas by current funding levels and effectiveness towards achieving a broad set of intrinsic values.

Outline drawing of two hands holding a yellow heart.

Intrinsic values

As humans, we are oftentimes less agentic than we would like to be. Regularly, our decisions are shaped by habits, urges, imitation of others, or societal norms. Significantly less often do we proactively reflect on our intrinsic values and use them to govern our actions. That can result in us significantly falling short of what we could achieve in areas that deeply matter to us.

In this context, it is crucial to distinguish between intrinsic and instrumental values. Based on the work of Spencer Greenberg, intrinsic values are ‘something you value for its own sake rather than something you value merely as a means to the other ends. In other words, intrinsic values are things you would value having there be more of even if nothing else occurs as a consequence.’

Active values exploration gives us an opportunity to align our impact activities with our concept of good in the world.

Simplified graphic of a molecule with a central yellow circle connected to four black circles with lines.

Polycapital

Every individual is more than their wealth, and the impact they can have extends beyond it. The most effective approaches often leverage all four kinds of capital: career, economic, social, and political. Learn more about polycapital here.