The benefit-corporation concept is an experiment, and it’s too soon to know how it will fare. My guess is that it will be a big success, because it can inspire loyalty, cooperation and real purpose, which helps create profits, too. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t experiment with other corporate forms to encourage giving.

In my 2012 book, “Finance and the Good Society” (Princeton University Press), I proposed another organizational form that would better encourage philanthropy— this time a form that is strictly nonprofit. As such, it has an advantage over a benefit corporation in that the public will be more likely to donate to it, seeing it as devoted exclusively to some higher cause.

I called this new form a “participation nonprofit,” meant for causes that need substantial contributions. Such an organization, which might run a school or a hospital, would offer to sell shares instead of requesting donations. The share sales would really be donations, but would be framed differently and come with rights that would change the whole giving experience.

Shareholders could vote their shares at stockholder meetings, as they would in a traditional corporation. The organization would pay some kind of dividend, too, though this would go into a restricted account, to be used only for a charitable purpose of the owner’s choosing. And shareholders could bequeath the stock to heirs, and could even sell it, though the proceeds would also go into the restricted account. For this plan to work well, people would need to receive a tax deduction for their share purchases, which are really irrevocable contributions to charity.

Structured this way, charitable giving would become personally meaningful in the way that investing is. Givers would feel a real sense of participation and partial control over their activities.

Charities might also experiment with various other organizational forms to foster philanthropic or community impulses. Perhaps they could involve cooperatives, mutual societies or other groups that also impart a sense of ownership. To date, however, large-scale experiments with such forms have been limited — whether by tax or other legal barriers, or simply by old-fashioned mistrust of change.

Clearly, it’s time to try these new paths to giving. Some of them will surely provide a better way to further our deeper purposes.