Rather than serving as a fundraiser for a wide range of nonprofits, the San Jose-based United Way Silicon Valley has announced that it will begin to identify community problems it wants to tackle and give money to nonprofits that can help it meet specific goals in those areas, the San Jose Mercury News reports.

"Donors don't want to be in the maintenance business," said United Way Silicon Valley president and CEO Mark Walker. "They want to know that they're moving people from one station in life to a new and improved station." At the same time, because some funders consider programs that provide emergency food and housing to be meeting their goals simply by providing services, United Way Silicon Valley will consider safety-net programs separately from those designed to make a long-term impact.

According to Sparky Harlan, executive director of the Bill Wilson Center in Santa Clara, funding only nonprofits that meet certain goals will make it more difficult for nonprofits in the region to take risks, either on innovative programs or on potential clients with particularly difficult problems. "Grants are supposed to give you that ability to try something and see if it's going to work or not," said Harlan. "That's how you innovate in the nonprofit world."

Paul Brest, president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in Menlo Park and an advocate of increased measurement and accountability in the sector, acknowledged that, if done badly, the new approach could make things worse. "What you don't want is 'teaching to the test': The donor and the organization look for things that are easy to count, but they really don't have any relevance to what you're trying to accomplish," said Brest. "That's a reason for caution, but it's not a reason not to try."