Above you’ll find Part I of the debate. You can find video of the full event via the links below:

• Part I
• Part II
• Part III
• Part IV
• Part V

You can see raw video footage of the Forum here. We’ll be releasing edited video in a couple of weeks.

The response to the Forum was so strong that we’re definitely going to continue hosting these events. If you have ideas for topics or speakers you would like to see, let us know via comment or email.

If you have any problem viewing the live stream, you can view it directly by clicking here.

This Tactical Philanthropy Forum will introduce the concept of "Unconstrained Philanthropy." Should donors and funders see their role as one of correcting and optimizing existing social systems, or do they have an opportunity to remake the social fabric? The Forum panel will engage in a robust debate of the appropriate role of donors and foundations in the complex systems of the social sector.

The conversation will examine the practicality of funders striving to fix the root cause of social problems and the trade-offs between focusing on tangible community issues versus tackling systematic interventions. The conversation will center on real-world applications and is designed for a cross-disciplinary audience. Anyone and everyone interested in a new and better social sector are encouraged to participate. Both social sector professionals and individual donors will enjoy the evening’s event. All attendees are asked to follow a strict policy of non-solicitation.

See everyone next Wednesday. I think we’re going to have a vibrant discussion!

Click here to register before we sell out!

For a little taste of what the event is all about, check out the video from the Tactical Philanthropy Forum we held in 2008 with Paul Brest and Bill Somerville.

Full video

A highlight of Paul Brest

A highlight of Bill Somerville

Today we’re announcing a new Forum debate on January 20 in San Francisco. I hope you can join us!

* * * * *

You’re invited to a special Tactical Philanthropy Forum with the Hudson Institute’s Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal.

In this session of the Tactical Philanthropy Forum we will introduce the concept of Unconstrained Philanthropy. Should donors and funders see their role as one of correcting and optimizing existing social systems or do they have an opportunity to remake the social fabric?

This Tactical Philanthropy Forum event brings together William Schambra of the Hudson Institute’s Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal, Bill Somerville of the Philanthropic Ventures Foundation and Paul Shoemaker of Social Venture Partners. The panel will engage in a robust debate of the appropriate role of donors and foundations in the complex systems of the social sector.

Sean Stannard-Stockton, CEO of Tactical Philanthropy Advisors, author of the Tactical Philanthropy blog and columnist for the Chronicle of Philanthropy will moderate. The conversation will examine the practicality of funders striving to fix the root cause of social problems and the tradeoffs between focusing on tangible community issues versus tackling systematic interventions.

Like all Tactical Philanthropy Forum events, the conversation will center on real world applications and is designed for a cross-disciplinary audience. Anyone and everyone interested in a new and better social sector are encouraged to participate. Both social sector professionals and individual donors will enjoy the evening’s event. All attendees are asked to follow a strict policy of non-solicitation.

This event is offered in partnership with the Foundation Center and is being held in the World Affairs Council’s conference room. Please join us beginning at 6:00pm for wine and hors d’oeuvres.

Click Here to Register

When:  January 20, 2010 from 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Where: The Foundation Center, 312 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA 94108

Past Tactical Philanthropy Forums have benefited from invitation recipients forwarding information about the event to friends and colleagues. You can easily forward this blog post by clicking on the Email This Post icon below.

Next we have a two minute clip of a more restrained Paul Brest explaining the concept of Strategic Philanthropy. But note that Paul has recently been a bit less restrained in his blog posts regarding Charity Navigator and NCRP’s Criteria for Philanthropy.

You can watch the full video here. If you want to jump around, click here to access the FORA.tv menu of option for the video. You can click on the various titled chapters. In Chapter 2, I layout the history of the Tactical Philanthropy blog and the purpose of the Forum. You can than click on the other chapters to view Paul Brest, Bill Somerville and myself discussing various issues.

I solicited written questions for Bill and Paul and got so many that I only got to pose about 20% to them. So I told the audience that I would start posting some of the additional questions here on the blog and Bill and Paul agreed to answer at least some of them. Of course, I invite everyone to answer these questions.

The discussion ranged across a number of issues and Bill and Paul kept jumping in to give their two cents even when a question was only directed at one of them. As a reminder, Paul was advocting for the idea of strategy and Bill is much more interested in “locating outstanding people doing important work” and using “intuition” to decide whom to fund. This first question references strategy and so is directed at Paul. But the question also touches on how to source knowledge from the community and so Bill will have a strong perspective. This question comes from a member of the audience:

Given the value of strategy in philanthropy, who should be involved in developing strategy? How does the foundation seek and use diverse perspectives in formulating strategy? After all, foundation staff don’t have a corner on wisdom…

A lot of the conversation last night centered on the tension between creating a strong strategy and needing to trust grantees. So what is the answer to the audience member’s question? It’s a good  one.

The best advice I’ve gotten regarding how best to moderate the debate is “[do not] let these two congenial gentlemen get away without a clear joining of the issues, because they really are the two best spokesmen at the moment for top-down vs. bottom-up philanthropy. And don’t let it go with “both approaches are needed.””

That will be my operating model for the evening.

I just finished reading Tom Watson‘s excellent book CauseWired. I’ll have a full review soon. But I want to share something he writes with you now. In the book, Tom writes about an online project called NewCritics.

Moving from online to in-person cemented the cause. Before we began planning our real-world gatherings, NewCritics was a nice little blog. After we met in person, it became a community.

This is why I’m so excited about the Forum, why I’m glad to know that so many people wanted to attend and many more encouraged me to host an event in their city, and why I plan to keep hosting these events next year.

Details regarding submitting a question can be found here.

I will now begin accepting online videos with questions posed to Paul Brest and Bill Somerville. Just record a video clip no longer than 30 seconds, upload it to any of the video portals listed below and email me a link to the video. A collection of the videos will be played at the Forum for the guests to answer live. We’ll also be recording and posting video of the entire Forum event here at Tactical Philanthropy in the days after the event.

The Tactical Philanthropy Community usually comes up with better ideas that I do, so if you have your own thoughts about how to use the video content just let me know. If anyone watched the CNN/YouTube presidential debates, you know that some people got very creative.

Here’s the list of portals that you can post your video to for consideration in this project:

• Youtube
• Blip.tv
• Break.com
• Dailymotion
• LiveVideo
• MetaCafe
• MyVideo.de
• Veoh
• Lulu.tv
• Vids.myspace.com
• Vimeo

Don’t forget that a wait list has been started for the Forum now that it has sold out. I’m still hoping to squeeze in some more seats so add yourself to the wait list for first shot at any new seats. I’ll also send you a pre-announcement to the next Forum event so you can be sure to register early if you don’t get into this one.

Sign up for the wait list here.

Thank you all for your outstanding support. The people on the attendee list include some real movers and shakers in philanthropy. Should be a great event.