Welcome to Tactical Philanthropy

Thanks for stopping by! Tactical Philanthropy is the personal blog of Sean Stannard-Stockton. Sean is a principal and director of tactical philanthropy at Ensemble Capital Management. Ensemble Capital provides clients traditional investment management and philanthropic planning. Since the blog’s founding in October of 2006, Tactical Philanthropy has become a leading voice in the online philanthropy conversation and a hub for people from donors to foundation executives to nonprofit employees to share their point of view.

So now that you’re here, what can you do?

  • Send Sean an email. Like all blogs, Tactical Philanthropy is authored by a real person who is happy to talk with you. If you have a question or comment about the blog, about philanthropy in general or about philanthropic tools like private foundations and donor advised funds, send Sean an email. You’ll get a response by the next business day (but probably within minutes or hours).
    • Click here to send Sean an email.
  • Post a comment. At the end of every blog post, you’ll see a link to “comments” (if there’s a number next to the word comments, that’s the number of comments already posted). Just click on that link and fire away. There is quite a buzz of activity on the Tactical Philanthropy site with people from all different facets of philanthropy offering up their point of view.
  • Subscribe to Tactical Philanthropy. Tactical Philanthropy is updated almost every weekday. You can have the latest posts sent to your inbox by entering your email address in the field at the upper-right of every blog page and clicking on “Subscribe”.
  • Check out the Tactical Philanthropy Podcasts. Once or twice a month the Tactical Philanthropy Podcast features interviews with movers and shakers in the philanthropy sector. Past guests have included Stacy Palmer, the editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Paul Shoemaker, the executive director of Social Venture Partners and James Canales, the CEO of the Irvine Foundation. Keeping with the goal of cultivating a conversation, all podcast guests spend a couple days after their interview is released answering questions and comments from readers.
  • Search the blog archives. Are you looking for something particular? Try using the search box that can be found in the right-hand column of any blog page. We’ve covered a lot of ground since our launch and might have addressed what you’re looking for. If not, just shoot Sean an email.
  • Read other philanthropy blogs. Blogging about philanthropy is a relatively new phenomenon. But the number of new blogs is growing all the time. Try checking out the blogs listed under “What I’m reading right now” to see the blogs Sean reads every day or click around in the “Giving Blog” list to find other blogs that address philanthropy. You can find these lists on the right-hand side of every blog page.

Thanks so much for reading. Tactical Philanthropy reaches a lot of readers every day. But the goal here is not to stand on a soapbox. Instead, we’re working to cultivate a dialogue. So take action and join the community. We look forward to hearing from you.