My friend Phil Buchanan, the president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, is one of the people who I think really understands the positive aspects of the trend towards “business-like thinking” in philanthropy and the negative aspects. He also understands that “business-like” is a misnomer for the trend. So I was thrilled to see his [...]
Category Archives: Philanthrocapitalism
SoCap 2008: Securitizing Philanthropy
October 15, 2008 – 10:12 am
There is an irony in the fact that so much of the conversation at the SoCap conference is about moving philanthropy towards a financial markets approach that seems to be in the process of breaking down in the for-profit financial markets. However, we should not confuse financial innovation with excessive risk taking. I just read [...]
Philanthrocapitalism & Consilience in Philanthropy
October 10, 2008 – 9:48 am
As a follow up to my post yesterday regarding the World Economic Forum and my personal views on “business thinking” in philanthropy, I’m reposting something I wrote for OnPhilanthropy.com back in January: Consilience in PhilanthropyWednesday, January 16, 2008By: Sean Stannard-Stockton Have you ever heard someone say, “We need to get out of our silos and [...]
World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Philanthropy & Social Investing
October 9, 2008 – 9:50 am
In November, I’ll have the honor of joining the newly formed World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Philanthropy & Social Investing. The Council includes: Paul Brest, president of the Hewlett Foundation Matthew Bishop, US business editor of The Economist magazine who coined the word “philanthrocapitalism” Jed Emerson, one of the founders of the movement [...]
A New Model for Community Foundations
September 25, 2008 – 11:34 am
A lot of people won’t like this post. That’s OK, life would be pretty boring if we all agreed all the time. Yesterday in response to my post about how banks could start launching no minimum donor advised funds, Ruth Lando of the Community Foundation of Sarasota wrote: Why couldn’t this be done through the [...]
Luis Ubinas in Alliance Magazine
September 11, 2008 – 8:59 am
In December, I’ll be speaking at the Yale School of Business philanthropy conference on the topic of Information Sharing in Philanthropy. I’ll be on a panel with the same subject matter at the Center for Effective Philanthropy conference in March of next year. So I was thrilled to see the interview with Ford Foundation president [...]
The Failure of Social Enterprise
September 10, 2008 – 6:33 am
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have failed. Over the weekend they were taken over by the federal government. While this in no way discredits the concept of for-profit firms having social missions, the fact that these unique “social enterprises” have failed cannot be ignored by the philanthrocapitalist set. From today’s Wall Street Jounrnal: An unanswered [...]
Philanthropy Evaluation: The Courtroom Approach
July 11, 2008 – 9:38 am
Steven Mayer is one of the people behind the Pathways to Progress website, dedicated to social justice philanthropy. Albert Ruesga wrote recently that “metrics based” philanthropy and “social justice” philanthropy are often viewed as two warring camps. But Albert suggested that in fact, “We fail to appreciate how closely united these two camps are in [...]
