As they become more and more comfortable with giving, donors come to define for themselves an engagement style that fits somewhere between totally hands off to deeply engaged. For nonprofits, these decisions about style can have significant consequences.

High levels of donor engagement may mean access to resources and talents of great value to the nonprofit. It may also entail a tremendous amount of extra work, as donors need to be handled and satisfied. For this reason, some nonprofits prefer to receive general operating support with as few strings attached as possible. Over time, however, almost all nonprofits learn to work with the different engagement approaches of their donors and understand that considerable variation is to be expected.

In thinking about the question of philanthropic engagement, two critical dimensions to any relationship between giver and recipient impose themselves. The first dimension is the one just described: the level of donor engagement, which can vary from very light oversight to heavy-handed control. The level of engagement will vary not only based on the style of the donor but also on the nature of the work being carried out by the recipient.

Some work, such as scientific research or the arts, makes it hard for donors to be engaged directly in the funded work because it simply requires a certain amount of independence. Other kinds of projects, such as youth programs and scholarship funds, are far more wide open to donor involvement and even reengineering. After all, everyone has an opinion on how to help young people, but few people know enough about genetic research to get deeply involved.

The second dimension is simpler and only describes the level of congruence or match between the values and intentions of the donor and the recipient. In some situations, donors and recipients think alike and share common aspirations, while in other cases, the two parties are very far apart, even if this is not apparent at the time of the grant. In either event, it is possible to view congruence, overlap, and coincidence in outlook and underlying values between donors and recipients as central to the formation of a strong working relationship.