SoCap 2008: Breaking Silos in Philanthropy

At SoCap today, I had to decide between a session titled Breaking Silos and one called Capital Cohabitation that was described as being about “how to break down silos”. Yesterday I published a post about… you guessed it, how important it is that we “break out of our silos”. The SoCap Conference is shockingly cross-disciplinary in the background of the attendees. Sometimes it seems like people are speaking different languages, but I think that’s OK. At least they’re trying to communicate.

Personally I’m focused on the intersection of wealth management and philanthropy. But those are just two of the silos that must be broken down for the social capital markets to thrive. I know that people on the inside of a trend tend to think it is more important than it really is. But I still believe that we are at a true turning point in the development of this field.

On my way over to the session I’m currently in, I heard a woman on a cell phone saying “I can’t believe it, there’s 600 people here and they’re all deeply interested in this stuff. I know they’re not all in our target market, but it is still amazing”.

That’s the thing, when you break down silos, the people on the other side aren’t always “in your target market”, but that’s inevitable when you’re building an entirely new marketplace.

One Comment

  1. You are right about everyone speaking different languages! I’m one of the 600! Apparently today is blog action day so thought you’d like to see this link to MIT’S home page