Across the many social impact areas our team has analyzed, we find that philanthropic support typically falls within one of four categories of ways that philanthropy can help. Similar to financial investment asset classes, these categories often reflect different levels of risk, time frames for results, and social impact return profiles. All have potential for high impact. However, some funders may lack the expertise, patience, risk-tolerance, networks, or personal comfort level to invest in all categories. In addition, criteria for selecting ways to help and types of evidence for assessing progress differ among these categories. Throughout this guide, we will provide specific examples of ways to help within each of these categories, matched to each of the five strategies that emerged from our applied research.