Monthly Archives: November 2007

The Secret Leaders of the Philanthropic Revolution

November 26, 2007 – 9:29 am

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from Jeremy Gregg. Jeremy has been working in the area of fundraising and brand-building since 2001. A graduate of SMU with an MBA from the University of Texas at Dallas, he is currently the Director of Development for Central Dallas Ministries. Jeremy is the author of the blog The Raiser’s Razor.

By Jeremy Gregg

What is the definition of power and influence in the philanthropic sector?

The NonProfit Times has offered an attempt to answer this question by issuing lists of the people whom they consider to hold said power and influence. Their 2007 list was the subject of one of my recent blogs as well as Phil Cubeta’s reply on his Gift Hub blog.

The image below comes courtesy of a 2005 post on adoption curve dot net, which I discovered when running a Google Image search for “power and influence.” The analysis struck me as a very fitting image to portray the ideas that I outline in my previous blog.

Power & Influence Map

I’ll concede that people like Patty Stonesifer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Susan Berresford of the Ford Foundation are indeed powerful. And that this power necessarily provides a certain level of influence.

But their power is not unexpected, and their influence fairly predictable in all but the most extreme circumstances. The “power and influence” of this particular Top 50 list, therefore, is fairly minimal.

Allow me to offer that a far more powerful list — a philanthromap, as it were — would be a more revelatory list such as:

The Top 50 Non-Profit Leaders Who are Quietly Changing the Sector

Or, as I with my conspiratorial bent would prefer:
The Secret Leaders of the Philanthropic Revolution

Who are these leaders? What are their defining traits? Are they the sort of folks whom we would be proud to invite to speak at our child’s school, or are they of that ilk that should be on some sort of public list that is carefully watched by the shadow government — or both?Who, I ask, truly holds the power in the philanthropic sector?Who, as the diagram at the top portrays, are the true “players” as opposed to merely the “context setters”?

I would propose that the following traits would make for a fairly short but substantive list of the truly powerful leaders of our sector, the likes of which NonProfit Times in all its illustrious glory would never publish:

  • They have no cash to throw around (i.e. the revolution will not be funded);
  • Their organization is not a household name (i.e. their national and local office are likely the same);
  • They regularly voice their ideas in speeches, blogs, print publications or other media — and they write their own material;
  • As the above image from adoption curve dot net blog illustrates, they have a high stake in the outcome of their actions/publications. This stake is deeply personal, far beyond compensation; that is, they have an intimate connection with the future of our sector.

I also think that an important consideration is whether or not they are compensated for their thoughts (i.e. they are part of a think-tank), or whether their publications are a veiled attempt to gain consulting contracts or sell services/products. This certainly should not fully eliminate people (love it or hate it, Terry Axelrod has made a lot of money while significantly changing our sector through her “Raising More Money” model). But there is a significant difference between Ms. Axelrod’s motivation in writing a blog and that of someone like the anonymous writer of Don’t Tell the Donor, who certainly has spent more resources on their blog than they will ever reap from its luminosity.

What names would you add to such a list? Phil Cubeta and I offered some initial suggestions in the aforementioned blogs. These are but a beginning.

Please add me your own nominations to this philanthromap as comments on this post

Blogs Aren’t For Everyone

November 26, 2007 – 9:19 am

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from an anonymous writer named “S”. S works in communications at a large California-based foundation and has worked in the philanthropy sector for more than a decade.

By “S”

You know what? Blogs aren’t for everyone. I get so tired of hearing how important it is to start a conversation online and care for it and feed it and make it go. Blogging can be a great tool, but has anyone thought about the fact the blogging may not be the greatest thing to ever come to philanthropy? How is posting a blog and receiving comments really a conversation? I post, you post, I post…

Paul Brest needs a blog. Really? What for? Let’s step back and think about this for a moment. Paul Brest needs a blog why? So that his completely scrubbed words can help philanthropy make its mark on the world? Let’s be real. Not only is Paul Brest too busy to have a blog, but the honest truth is, people don’t crave news about philanthropies, they just don’t. I work for a foundation and we share about our work only as much as we want to. Other than that, no go.

This blogging community in philanthropy is tiny. The only people who regularly comment on others’ posts are the bloggers themselves. When you need to ask people to Digg it or to StumbleUpon it, what are you doing? Skewing the result of what normal people might do. People aren’t Digg-ing it or StumblingUpon it because it’s not what is on their agenda.

Philanthropy is a great thing and helping out all kinds of people is a great thing. But foundations get so wrapped up in trying to tell everyone about their work and how great they are. Who cares about what the general public thinks? We are important and we are doing great work. We are so convinced that we need to get out there with our message.

The foundation I work for has spent nearly four decades doing good work. And before the Internet and blogging and Digg and StumbleUpon and other avenues online, we have been able to get the word out as necessary.

I am not against an online conversation or building the interest around philanthropy. We just need to think about it and not assume that everyone should be interested. They have their lives, too.

links for 2007-11-25

November 25, 2007 – 12:23 am

links for 2007-11-24

November 24, 2007 – 12:21 am

Blogging Is Like Life

November 23, 2007 – 11:32 am

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from Julia Moulden. Julia is a regular contributor to the world’s #1 blog, the Huffington Post. Her new book, WE ARE THE NEW RADICALS: A Manifesto for Reinventing Yourself and Saving the World, will be published internationally by McGraw-Hill, New York in January 2008

By Julia Moulden

Blogging is like life: it takes on the meaning you give it.

At first, blogging was an act of faith. Long before I had a publisher, I had a blog. From this tiny cyberplatform, I sent forth word about a movement I saw taking shape — that people were longing to do good works. My earliest posts felt like calls into a virtual Grand Canyon, and I listened intently for the first faint echoes.

People like Drew McManus read my blog and made contact. Drew is co-founder of Bring Light, an innovative new website where people can find causes they care about, dialogue with charities and the community, and collaborate to fund a specific project (and, yes, they have a blog). Drew shared many wonderful stories with me, including how, when they were deep in the R&D phase, he came across a young woman’s MySpace page. She was talking to her friends, telling them that her rent had just been lowered by $40 a month, and that she wanted to give that money to charity. She asked if anyone had any suggestions of good causes she might consider. Drew remembers taking a sharp breath in and thinking, “Wow, when I was her age, that extra forty bucks would have gone to beer.”

Fifteen months later, blogging no longer feels like whispering shyly into the void. It has become a way to meet men and women I would otherwise never have encountered, and learn about their lives. Most importantly, it is a way to begin — and nurture — conversations with these people so that we can find ways to work together (like the MySpace woman and her friends) to make an even greater difference.

The need to tell and hear stories is as old as civilization. I now understand that a blog is simply a new tool.

Beyond Hacking Philanthropy

November 23, 2007 – 11:25 am

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from Kevin Jones. Kevin is a principal at Good Capital and blogs at xchangexchange.

By Kevin Jones

There are events like Hacking philanthropy, where people try to come up with new ways to crack the code of giving. There are events like Josh Becker’s zero tradeoff conference where a new group of funds say you can invest to do good at no discount to return. Both approaches are attracting a lot of people and attention. And I think they’re great, but I also think something deeper needs to happen.

If you are hacking philanthropy, it’s like, in technology terms, that you are just hacking at the interface level; you are buying into the set of assumptions, the implicit myths that the system offers you. The true power of the open source Linux system is that it opens up the root level, where you can decide which interface, which set of assumptions you buy, or where you can even create a new set. That’s where I want to play. At the root, superuser level, where you decide who you are, look at your resources and decide what impact you want to make in the world, without the hard and fast categories of giving and investing, two pocket thinking that you’ve had handed down to you.

I want to hack at the root level, not just hack philanthropy or investing. I want to reconsider the basic equation. What impact do I want to make in the world? How much do I need, how much can I share for the sake of all?

links for 2007-11-22

November 22, 2007 – 12:22 am

My Favorite Daily Cause

November 21, 2007 – 11:23 am

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from Tracy Gary. Tracy is the author of Inspired Philanthropy: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Giving Plan and Leaving a Legacy. She has been a donor activist and philanthropist for more than 25 years. She has appeared on Oprah Winfrey, The Today Show and the New York Times as well as many other media outlets.

By Tracy Gary

Changing the conversation from “Where do you work?” to “What do you care about, and do you use your money and time for the public good?”, is my favorite daily cause.

When I sit on planes, buses and rails to get to my destination, inspiration or “bridging the great divide” simply manifests that way. Take the story of my trip from San Francisco to New York. When I share my love of giving and the importance of each of us giving more and more strategically, inevitably I have an interesting exchange. Try it, I say, and let’s get out of the same old ways.

One of my seat partners on a bounced up first class Continental flight, was a worn out Silicon Valley, twenty something, who had dropped out of Stanford to toss in his software skills for the almighty buck. Six years later, at age 25, he was spent. Exhausted and without the slightest work-home-community, balance. Half way to NY, after hearing me share the people who excited me in our same community, he was committed to joining a nonprofit board and going to do some selfless service to get his soul back. And you know what…he joined Edgewood Children’s Home’s board as the youngest team member and sent me $1000 as a gift to pass on. Changed his life he said!

When he emailed six months later to get some help with his marriage on our next trip to New York…my answer was easy…”Join TV Free America,” I said. Now I’m not Dr. Ruth, but taking the TV out of your bedroom and putting in some serious play time is good for the best of us. Imagine my delight when I hear his next call. We grow great donors at Inspired Legacies, and the work of it is the pleasure of change making the culture. May we shape the society we long to live for and with. Thanks for the inspiration, Sean. But pass on your enticement, or pay it forward, with our buy one and give one free offer, for Inspired Philanthropy. You might for that $500 enable 20 new donors to get into transformational giving! Hey, there’s a story of gratitude on the horizon. Catch it! Meanwhile, I’m off to my next plane ride.

-Tracy Gary, jet sitter with the “to be inspired”…

Does Blogging Substitute Real Action?

November 21, 2007 – 11:19 am

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from Perla Ni. Perla was the founder of the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Her current project is Great Nonprofits, a “Zagat’s”-like guide to nonprofits.

By Perla Ni

Does blogging substitute real action?

I get asked about this a lot because I blog.   Why are all these people blogging?   Why aren’t they out there in the real world doing something?

Especially in the nonprofit world – where there’s so much need and most ED’s I know are busy enough running their programs, fundraising, doing the jobs of 4 people – blogging about nonprofits or philanthropy seems quite a luxury in navel-gazing.  There’s so much work that needs to be done in the real world, why waste time blogging?

I have two minds about this.  On one hand, yes, I’ve seen blogging become an end to itself for some bloggers.  One blogger I know started blogging in order to vent his frustrations about the lack of community spirit in his town.  Though he’s still very much looking for solutions, he’s equally absorbed with monitoring how many people have visited his blog and how long they’ve stayed on the site.  Because the “success” of blogs are measured by these metrics, it’s easy to see how some can get so absorbed in the process of blogging that it saps their focus from tackling the real world problem.\

On the other hand, blogging is essentially the mass, interactive, publishing and the dissemination ideas.  It’s an efficient means for spreading ideas.  As Seth Godin says, “ideas that spread, wins.  Period.”

When we think of some of the most important accomplishments of nonprofits – the civil rights movement, environmental movement, women’s rights movement – these are all massive systemic changes that required the winning of millions of hearts and minds.  The ideas and values at the heart of our nonprofit work – whether it be providing after school programs, cleaning up local streams, providing battered women shelter – need to be spread and supported even more widely if we want systemic change.

That’s where blogging can matter.  Blogging is not the only means – but one easy and efficient channel for you to spread your ideas far and wide.    Even those of you who are on the front lines – working with incarcerated juveniles, or running a museum, or providing health counseling – you are all also in the business of winning support for your patients, clients and cause.   You are all in the business of gaining converts to your ideals and goals.  Now if they can only add another 2 hours to the day!

links for 2007-11-21

November 21, 2007 – 12:23 am