Thanks for starting this Michael!!!

To talk about changing it, we might need to talk about what it is now so we have something to push against.

So I ask, what do you think philanthropy is? Is it for people of wealth who sit idly by funding buildings at universities? It is your Aunt giving money to the United Way? Is it giving specifically of money or can other resources be involved?

From http://www.indianagrantmakers.org/give/glossary.html we get:

Philanthropy is defined in different ways. The origin of the word philanthropy is Greek and means love for mankind. Today, philanthropy includes the concept of voluntary giving by an individual or group to promote the common good. Philanthropy also commonly refers to grants of money given by foundations to nonprofit organizations. Philanthropy addresses the contribution of an individual or group to other organizations that in turn work for the causes of poverty or social problems, improving the quality of life for all citizens. Philanthropic giving supports a variety of activities, including research, health, education, arts and culture, as well as alleviating poverty.

I'm very glad you started at the roots of the term. That is where I would want to draw us to in any question of transforming P.

Understanding where P. is now, and perhaps how far it is from its roots is important. I think many of us are looking at the world and reading through a screen. And part of that screen are the modern practices of charities, philanthropic organizations, the non-profit sector, and our experiences of those, including disappointments and expectations.

Connecting to the roots might give us leverage in the transformation. A lever requires several points.

Giving is a choice. That others give, and that we have our own impressions of what is worthwhile plays a factor in some dissatisfaction with P.

Great resources for looking at this more deeply can be found in Greater Good by Claire Gaudiani and a liberal arts history of Philanthropy in The Perfect Gift

Just as the internet has revolutionized retail, it is revolutionizing giving. So it should not be at all surprising that internet entrepreneurs take a new look at how giving is done and how to do it more innovatively.

I see a few things happening: 1. Giving while living--a new generation involved in philanthropy doesn't want to hoard their money till death then leave a bequest. They plan to give most of their money away while alive. Further contributing to this is the belief that kids handed too much money will blow it (well founded, 70% of inheritances are blown in 3 years or less). If making your kids good people means giving them only a small portion of the family wealth, then where should the rest of the money go?

2. The internet connects us--we can find out about charities, nonprofits, and even how effective many of them are EASILY.
3. Socially Responsible Investing developed in the seventies, has mainstreamed. The followers of SRI now seek to work on another plane--Socially Responsible Venture Capital basically with the simple idea of "Hey wouldn't it be great if instead of handing out money that keeps people trapped in poverty by creating dependencies, we offer them an opportunity to help themselves become independent and contrubite to society?"

This was off the top of my head and is certainly not exhaustive. Any other trends you see?

This has been a hot topic for me personally for some time now, I posted my some of my initial thoughts on the question at http://givingspace.org/papers/initconcept.htm. I've grown to adopt the "love of humanity" definition of philanthropy, but unfortunately, the society's definition of the word tends to assume be rich people writing checks to poor people. I'm not sure its worth trying to fight the battle of using the word philanthropy while it carries so much excess baggage.

I moved to the word "uplift" rather than "giving" in order to allow a broader, more diverse discussion of what can be done. Making a cash donation is but one form of uplift.

It seems to me that monetizing philanthropy leads to a "too many problems, not enough money" approach to decision making. The world is broken, according to this model, and can only be saved if we Fix It. If our first round of fixes didn't work, (or make things worse), then this proves our initial assumption that we need to Fix It some more. This leads to a Problem Addiction Loop - that we only know how to take action when there is a problem to solve. Only when we see some crisis on TV do we spring into action.

Certainly, there are problems that desperately need to be solved. (HIV/AIDS, fresh water) And there are problems which require centralized, controlled effort to solve them (eradication of polio, for example). And we can't expect grass-roots solutions to everything (we can't expect a poor community to spontaneously engineer a water system). For this class of problems, concerted action is necessary.

At the same time, there is a danger in assuming that everything problems fall into this class. Taking action to dissolve a problem before it manifests itself is a much more subtle thing than solving a known problem. If we are successful in this endeavor, we have no way of measuring the problems that didn't happen. Let's imagine that someone said something that prevented WW III from happening. How would we know? There may have been a zillion things that have prevented WW III; we have no way of assigning a "causal" status to them. Things have a much less predictable cascading effect.

I am particularly interested in is to shift our perspective to discover what's working and then using the network to do more of it. Understanding what's working and what's failing are two different ways of knowing when we are dealing with certain levels of complexity. If we are dealing with simple systems, say a toaster, then fixing a broken toaster makes it whole. If we are dealing with more complex systems, in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, then things change. Understanding a dissected cat and understanding how live cats thrive are two very different exercises. Unfortunately, as our global systems have become ever more complex and cat-like, our ways of understanding are mired in toaster-like thinking. We are strangely attracted to vicious circles, trying to get out of holes by digging them deeper.

Given all the problems and crises we face, it may seem frivolous to imagine a better world based on cascading uplift... virtuous circles that lift themselves up in a kind of self-organizing, self-propagating manner. Unfortunately, I can't point to something currently in existence and say, "I am thinking of one of those."

One weak metaphor for this might be The Wave (La Ola!), which we see in sports stadia around the world. A small number of people stand up and shout, triggering their neighbors to do so, which triggers a self-organizing, self-propagating wave of activity around the stadium. Scientists studying this phenomenon use the model of an excitable medium - the audience is in a state susceptible for the Wave, much in the way that grassland is in an "excitable state" for a spark to trigger a brush fire. It's not the size of the spark that determines the size of the fire, but rather the "excitability" of the area supporting the fire.

It is interesting to note that The Wave began in 1986, after which it spread quickly to sporting events all around the world. I suspect that this has to do with television... that crowds were seeing themselves for the first time, and that this feedback reinforced this new collective behavior.

If we think of humanity itself as an "excitable medium," this brings up some interesting questions:

• Just what excites folks sufficiently to get them to trigger wave-like uplift activities?
• What would be the initial trigger points to such a thing?
• How would would we connect people and things to give them sufficient connectivity to allow the wave to flow?
• What feedback would be necessary to allow the wave participants to see and understand their own activities?
• How would we know that the wave would be used for benevolent activties? As we have seen with email and spam and other forms of "malware", creating large scale open networks is a two-sided sword.

pc1 I like it (need to study it more, but am wondering: is the psychology of group behavior only 20 years old? :O )

Tom,

Do you ever ask the question, "Why are there rich people and poor people?" One answer is that there will always be a distribution, but this doesn't address the fact that the majority of the world's population is structurally disadvantaged by the economic system we have it place. While it is true to say that many people can help themselves and others without monetary resources, it does a terrible disservice to billions of hard working people who are oppressed by the current economic order.

From an ethical perspective, I think it is reasonable for the majority to ask whether this great accumulation of monetary wealth in the hands of several hundred or thousand families worldwide is fair or right in any sense. And if it isn't as I claim, then what must be done about it.

All of it was once a Commons that all of us shared as an inheritance from Mother Earth, and those who have bennefitted most financially owe the most back to the Commons. Some few wealthy persons do understand this, but few have enough wealth to move this on their own, and fear to risk their stake without others to stand with. Poor people often demonstrate their willingness to give in a far higher proportion compared to their income and without any personal savings to speak of. I see you letting the wealthy off the hook in all of this. They control the wealth, therefore they have a responsibility to be good stewards of that wealth, and if they do not, we have a right to demand it.

Gerry Gleason said:

Tom,

Do you ever ask the question, "Why are there rich people and poor people?"

Well, actually I did, to the point of starting graduate school in economics. I dropped out after a year, however, because I didn't like the way that economists thought (sorry, Niny. I'm sure its changed over the years).

It seems to me that philanthropic reform and economic reform are two very different topics, though. I was refering to philanthropy in my posting.

Do we have that right? If it is a demand, it isnt of the category of philanthropy.

Since social responsibility was mentioned, I thought I would bring in another term, mentioned by Luke in another thread, but relevant here: stewardship. It's about changing our relationship to resources.

While I'm at it, I'll invoke John Ruskin. In similar vein he suggests that how we employ resources and how we employ the labor of others bears with it a responsibility for stewardship, including something like a cultivation of talents.

Does this move in the direction of our humanizing ourselves and the world? Bringing to light a relation of stewardship and care... care for others, care for the environment, and care for ourselves.

Transferred from less relevant thread... Aug 3rd 2005

I found some press which is relevant to this question. Respectfully posted to show where some or even many O.net members (with some clear exceptions too) may be "coming from", quite literally. I found this site from reading these articles.

Love

Michael.

< < < < < <

Press quotes:

Tufts University site;

The Tufts couple aims to continue their generosity – with plans to give away 99 percent of the money earned from the company.

“[Omidyar] expects eventually to give away much of his eBay wealth (now about $6.5 billion) to causes that he hopes will help people become more active in their communities,” reported the Times.

Medford/Somerville, Mass. [11-19-03] Pierre Omidyar

> > > > > >

http://www.omidyar.net/corp/t_pierre.html

After eBay's success and its IPO in 1998, Pierre, along with his wife, Pam, co-founded the Omidyar Foundation to fund nonprofits. Yet eBay's tremendous social impact as a for-profit company demonstrated that business could also be an effective tool for making the world a better place.

In response, they broadened their scope in June 2004 and formed a new entity, Omidyar Network, to invest in for-profit, nonprofit and public policy efforts.

To date, the Network has funded a number of areas that leverage transparent, collaborative and bottom-up approaches so that "more and more people discover their own power to make good things happen." Those areas include microfinance, citizen journalism, open source, representative government and elections, and intellectual property commons, among others.

Over the next five years, the organization plans to invest $400 million across sectors and seek out financially self-sustaining models that can only be successful by having a social impact.

> > > > > >

Auctionbytes-NewsFlash, Number 834 - August 25, 2004 - ISSN 1539-5065

eBay Founder Launches Omidyar Network

By Ina Steiner

AuctionBytes.com

August 25, 2004

"Billionaire nerd with a social conscience" might describe Pierre Omidyar. Since founding eBay in 1995 and handing over the reigns of eBay to Meg Whitman, Omidyar and his wife Pam have found various ways to "do good" with their vast wealth.

In June of this year, the Omidyars created the Omidyar Network, an organization with simple core belief: "that every individual has the power to make a difference." The Omidyar Network will fund for-profit organizations as well as non-profits.

On Tuesday, Omidyar made the site open to the public and posted an announcement on his Blog (http://pierre.typepad.com).

Omidyar Network

> > > > > > >

The Radical Philanthropist

Quentin Hardy, 05.01.00

Forbes.com

Omidyar and others among the new superrich share something the rest of us feel about them: a gnawing unease that their massive, newly minted wealth somehow came a little too fast, a little too easily.

They have heard the sniping that their own charitable giving hasn't quite kept pace with their rise in wealth.

Yet they also feel that passively turning over billions to a foundation of the sort left behind by Rockefeller or Ford is a cop-out. Too many of these self-perpetuating entities are wasteful and inefficient.

"You know, it would be possible to blow $100 billion" and have no impact at all, says Patricia Stonesifer, who manages the $21 billion Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, (see sidebar).

That's what bothered Omidyar--he could exhaust his fortune and fail to achieve anything. At 32 he had a lifetime ahead of him to figure out how to do it right.

This iconoclastic programmer, who had combined one good idea with the right few lines of software to make an overnight fortune, wanted something radical out of the philanthropy business.

Since that brunch with Jerry Yang, the Omidyars' stake in the auction service has grown to $6.6 billion. They decided early on to give away nearly all of it--but by experimenting with a new type of philanthropy.

They hope it can be as powerful an agent for social change as Ebay and the Web are for commerce.

Like a venture-capital firm, they are seeding a number of small causes in a style that has come to be called venture philanthropy.

The Omidyars will give more money to charities that follow solid business plans and meet the Omidyars' benchmarks, such as creating earnings streams that sustain the nonprofit work. Then their Darwinian, unsentimental aim is to drop the flops and expand the successes, forming national organizations.

The couple is also fostering a network of "social entrepreneurs" who share their uneasiness over how few problems are solved by traditional philanthropy.

Just as Webheads demolished old business models, Pierre and Pam Omidyar strive to demolish old philanthropic models in favor of new ones that deliver on that very elusive goal of all grant givers, accountability.

"When you create wealth in a short time, you think about philanthropy as you think about a business," says Omidyar, a compact, soft-spoken man.

"You don't move from saying, 'How can we rationalize an industry?' to 'Where do I sign the big check?'" His charity adviser, Lorna Lathram, puts it even more bluntly: "We have a tremendous amount of product--money. Our problem is, we don't have any decent delivery mechanism--charities."

Tom and Gerry, I think you both have something very valuable to say here. I really believe in the need for Tom's uplift. And I think Theresa Williamson's Catylitic Communities and O-net itself are both space that encourage the exchange of capital--more than just monetary capital--intellectual and social capital too.

Specifically, I see people of wealth, especially those involved with organizations like Resource Generation, recognizing the economic desparity rampant in our culture and trying to address it. Fix it? Not sure if that is the right term. We are where we are in our evolution, wonderful and sad as that is.

I understand the term, "philanthropy" is problematic. Still, it acts as a convienent rack for me to hang some thoughts on.

As Gerry pointed out people making less than...what...about $25,000 a year give a higher percent of their income to causes? I can grab the stats on that if you want them.

Come on, amazing giving most often happens between neighbors and in small communities where love binds and people do not detach from the community needs. (Look at the community donation mechanisms developed here!)

If that is the good stuff, then how do we make that happen on a global scale? Onet. Catalytic Communities. The internet itself.

You can take the word philanthropy out of the revolution, but the change is happening nevertheless. Everyday. And right here. Now.

Michael, great job facilitating, let me give you a comment apart from this.

Well said Jean - particularly,

Come on, amazing giving most often happens between neighbors and in small communities where love binds and people do not detach from the community needs. (Look at the community donation mechanisms developed here!)

And tagging in Niny's long tail reference offers some healthy parameters for this thread.

Philanthropy works as a 'personal' expression rather than a mandated effort, i.e. I offer 'uplift' because I see my humanity in x.

Jean Russell said:

Tom and Gerry, I think you both have something very valuable to say here. I really believe in the need for Tom's uplift. And I think Theresa Williamson's Catylitic Communities and O-net itself are both space that encourage the exchange of capital--more than just monetary capital--intellectual and social capital too.

Specifically, I see people of wealth, especially those involved with organizations like Resource Generation, recognizing the economic desparity rampant in our culture and trying to address it. Fix it? Not sure if that is the right term. We are where we are in our evolution, wonderful and sad as that is.

I understand the term, "philanthropy" is problematic. Still, it acts as a convienent rack for me to hang some thoughts on.

As Gerry pointed out people making less than...what...about $25,000 a year give a higher percent of their income to causes? I can grab the stats on that if you want them.

Come on, amazing giving most often happens between neighbors and in small communities where love binds and people do not detach from the community needs. (Look at the community donation mechanisms developed here!)

If that is the good stuff, then how do we make that happen on a global scale? Onet. Catalytic Communities. The internet itself.

You can take the word philanthropy out of the revolution, but the change is happening nevertheless. Everyday. And right here. Now.

Micahel, great job facilitating, let me give you a comment apart from this.

Transferred from less relevant thread Aug 3rd 2005, and re-posed as a request. I know I am NOT asking this on behalf of the whole community, just with those who want more clarity, like I do, and there are some. It refers to the material in the post of mine above this one...press articles, etc.

Thanks!

> > > > > > >

... I think we need a definite stand (statement of intent) as to the reality, or not, of the philanthropy enhancement plans of O.N. We see the postings of O.N. investments and can compare those with O.net amounts/availabilities. The difference is impressive.

Bravo on the ventures funded, honestly, and can we in O.net get an idea of what is intended with our community on this?

I am willing to put in even more work than I already have, but not in a vacuum of data, which is what we have right now.

Lars also wanted such a clarity on this point, I believe. I know some members are not comfortable openly writing about this but I am. Philanthropy and its reality are, as an artist, dear to my heart.

Thomas, Susan and Matt, could we please have a higher clarity level in our O.net working basis regarding the intended presence or absence of philanthropic funding to/through O.net as was published in earlier press. This is important to many members, I firmly believe.

Clarity doesn't cost anything, but our time, efforts and contributions to O.net do.

Many thanks in advance for what you can do on this point.

Michael Laurealus

In some sense, one of the goals of philanthropy has to be economic and political justice. Otherwise you are just continuing to bail a leaky boat, and in the worst case, someone else it blowing new holes in the hull. That's why it is true that you could blow 100 billion and have no impact at all.

Thanks Michael for highlighting the role of stewardship. Looked at from another direction, Phil has often mentioned one definition of philanthropy, private action for the public good, which begs the question, "Whose good?", the wealthy donor or the target of this largess? The radical reconception is to recognize that all of us have a stake in these decisions, not just the wealth holders. Phil's friend Peter Karoff is working on a project called The World We Want which is a start of openning up the conversation beyond the wealth stakeholders to include givers of time and talent in the mix. I encourage anyone following this thread to make your voice heard by answering Peter's questions and writing publicly about it. Let Phil know where you put is so he can link it to the blog.

Am I reading you correctly? You want to challenge the above definition of "philanthropy".

Gerry Gleason said:

In some sense, one of the goals of philanthropy has to be economic and political justice. Otherwise you are just continuing to bail a leaky boat, and in the worst case, someone else it blowing new holes in the hull. That's why it is true that you could blow 100 billion and have no impact at all.

Thanks Michael for highlighting the role of stewardship. Looked at from another direction, Phil has often mentioned one definition of philanthropy, private action for the public good, which begs the question, "Whose good?", the wealthy donor or the target of this largess? The radical reconception is to recognize that all of us have a stake in these decisions, not just the wealth holders. Phil's friend Peter Karoff is working on a project called The World We Want which is a start of openning up the conversation beyond the wealth stakeholders to include givers of time and talent in the mix. I encourage anyone following this thread to make your voice heard by answering Peter's questions and writing publicly about it. Let Phil know where you put is so he can link it to the blog.

Michael L. and like minds...I don't want to diminish your questions, and I have something else to post. Please keep your question alive in this thread.

I want to post about the history of philanthropy a little. I know it may not be ideal, and yet, where would we be without it? Let's take one philanthropist as an example: Julius Rosenwald. Julius was a Sears man. He built a fortune. Then he partnered, through matching grants with local communities to build the Rosenwald schools, mostly in the South, enabling black kids to get an education otherwise, for the most part, unavailable. If Rosenwald had not been a philanthropist, how many black kids would have gone to school, gotten jobs, increased the standard of living for themselves, their families, their communities and future generations? Rosenwald funded black intelligentsia in the first half of the 20th century. He partnered to build numerous YMCAs. And he was the $ behind Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. Do you have any idea how much revenue a museum like that brings to a community?

for more on Rosenwald, see my article with many links at http://www.madmavens.com/highimpact/Spenddown405.html

Philanthropists have been at the forefront...leading communities to open new schools, museums, parks, and programs, funding innovations in health care, saving millions of lives, pushing government policy...you name it...the Space Program, commercial aviation...whatever it is, some philanthropists probably played a role in helping it along.

For more on this, see http://www.clairegaudiani.com/Writings/pages/BookExcerpt.aspx

A new wave of philanthropy is brewing. More people of wealth have access to programs like Making Money Make Change. http://www.resourcegeneration.org/What/mmmc.html

It is hard to fathom what the future looks like, but giving is going to continue to change the way the world works. And so are we, here, at O-net. I have a vision, a revolution on my mind.

What if o-net was a space for us to figure out what to do with the wealth available here? What would that look like? What if money was dropped on the community again? $25,000 wasn't much and that project was messy. So Michael L., are you asking for that to happen again? What would you envision a giving to the community to look like (that is different from current funding practices)?

It has been commented in numerous places that it would be a daunting responsibility to steward a fortune (on the order of billions, for example) towards the common good. It is my hope that we mature in the direction of being less daunted by such prospect.

(Side note: to avoid a little confusion, perhaps we can indicate MichaelM, MichaelL, and any other Michaels or duplicate names that pop up in this thread, when making reference to them? thanks!)

Not only COULD you blow 100 billion, there are people and organizations which ARE blowing it (and our government is involved in that sort of activity too).

Yet, there are people giving away $500 or $1000 and making a huge impact. I am working on an article this month with a philanthropic advisor where we will point out such incredible opportunities for impact in global giving.

Let's not loose the post Michael has made, especially the point about STEWARDSHIP. I love that. We do need to bear in mind the responsibility we have to those we employ--directly and indirectly (through what we buy).

I would like to see Philanthropy mean--intentional direction of resources to improve the world and the people who depend on it. basically, I use what I got to do good things. EVRYONE has something to contribute and EVERYONE has something they can gain by the association.

Last year (or was it two years ago?), at the Donors Forum of Chicago annual luncheon the key-noter challenged the philanthropic community to do big things, to have a vision. A Philanthropist of a century ago promoted local libraries across the USA. This was part of a big vision. I think it generated massive uplift in establishing something of the commons in so many communities.

This is counterposed to some of the limitations in conventional philanthropic practice.

Some of these investments in the commons were anonymous, some were quite public.

Am I reading you correctly? You want to challenge the above definition of "philanthropy".

No, I'm extending it, and as the attribution indicates, it doesn't come from me.

I'm with MichaelM 100% about the need for big visions. The Internet is arguably the library of the future, so I would think that a big vision around universal digital access for communities has to be a piece of the puzzle. It is also way cheaper and has a wider impact the bricks and motar libraries, although the complimentary community centers for hands-on learning would be a bricks and motar part of this.

I think "extending", in this case, is challenging.

After all, MichaelM framed this thread with the questions:

What does it mean to have or bring about a different philanthropy? a transformation of philanthropy? to revolutionize philanthropy?

So for you (and am prepared to be corrected) ... revolutionised philanthropy requires elements of economic and social justice articulated via a collectivity.

And presumably ... o.net may serve as one such collective?

Am I tracking you???

Gerry Gleason said:

Am I reading you correctly? You want to challenge the above definition of "philanthropy".

No, I'm extending it, and as the attribution indicates, it doesn't come from me.

I don't see how you can say otherwise and still say you love humanity. In this sense, I am completely within the bounds of the earlier definitions, I'm just challenging what that means. You can have a different answer, but then I challenge you to articulate it. So if you say I am doing more than extending, I'm challenging you to say what Philanthropy without justice would look like.

Flip this on its head. The poor demonstrate their Philanthropy every day by not openly revolting against the established order. When people follow Ghandi and MLK and work peacefully for justice, I say they are practicing the highest form of philanthropy.

Is this your reply to me??

Cause, I'm only attempting to be sure I understand your position.

Gerry Gleason said:

I don't see how you can say otherwise and still say you love humanity. In this sense, I am completely within the bounds of the earlier definitions, I'm just challenging what that means. You can have a different answer, but then I challenge you to articulate it. So if you say I am doing more than extending, I'm challenging you to say what Philanthropy without justice would look like.

Flip this on its head. The poor demonstrate their Philanthropy every day by not openly revolting against the established order. When people follow Ghandi and MLK and work peacefully for justice, I say they are practicing the highest form of philanthropy.

I think this is interesting... it is a question of connecting our ideas of phlanthropy to living and meaningful practices, as opposed to an idea that sits (sulks?) in the corner of our mind, inert, possibly referring to what someone else does. Tie to history, tie to the roots, and its' connection to other basic principles, especially when those principles have a vital force and meaning: justice, social justice, love. Let it be dynamic, unforced.

An awakening to the possibilities of meaning.