Can Foundation Nonprofits Make A Greater Impact than the Traditional Nonprofit?

Last week we spent a lot of time talking about measuring impact and debating whether or not all organizations can make an impact. While reading about foundations this week, I began thinking that foundations may have the ability to make a greater impact than the traditional nonprofits we have discussed in class, which have typically been service-based. Service-based nonprofits have a more narrow focus which is typically on a specific target population and mission. However, foundations do not have the same restrictions, because they can pick and choose the nonprofits they want to fund. It seems to me that if a foundation picked a specific area of focus such as reducing homelessness, and developed a specific methodology with all the things that affect homelessness and what needs to be done to eliminate it, it could then choose the nonprofit organizations who fall within that methodology and require them to meet certain measurements by providing them funding. If a foundation funded each of these organizations and required specific results, I would think the opportunity for impact would be extremely high.

What do you think? Can a foundation make a greater impact than the typical service-based nonprofits that we have discussed in class?