Giving away billions sounds easy. Write a check and change the world. But Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, admitted last year that, actually, “it is very difficult to give money away for the reality of goodness.” And perhaps surprisingly, a nonprofit boss has said he’s not wrong.
Liz Baker, the CEO of Greater Good Charities—a global nonprofit that has distributed more than $1 billion in impact across 121 countries since 2006—has been navigating the complexity of giving away other people’s money for over a decade. And she’ll tell you Musk is only scratching the surface of how hard it really is.
“I wish I had a billion dollars to give away, but as somebody who’s responsible for giving away money, yeah, it’s hard, because there’s a really big responsibility that goes with that,” Baker exclusively told Fortune. “If you give me $1, I’m going to spend it the way that you want it spent. But there’s all this stuff that goes into it—geopolitical stuff, you don’t want to create dependencies in communities—like, what is the right avenue, and what are things that are really needed?”
Baker, who has led Greater Good Charities since 2012, oversees an organization that spans crisis and disaster response, humanitarian relief, biodiversity, and animal health and well-being across more than 120 countries. Under her watch, it has earned a 100/100 score from Charity Navigator and a Platinum Rating from GuideStar for transparency—the nonprofit equivalent of straight A’s.
