Transforming Philanthropy

[K.J]

Worldchanging editor Alex Steffan has posted a wonderful look into the future of philanthropy over at the Worldchanging blog. I have personally increased my philanthropic giving this past year and plan to continue doing so this year. The issues Alex discusses resonate strongly with my own ideas about the future of giving in this time of transformation.

[follow the link for the full article]

Transforming PhilanthropyAlex Steffen
January 18, 2007 11:33 AM

Giving well -- giving money which provokes positive transformation over the long haul -- can be like juggling porcupines: things can easily end in tears, and everything keeps moving quickly. But the time has come to think about philanthropy in a new way: it's time for us to invent some new porcupine juggling moves.

Worldchanging philanthropy, both organizational and personal, requires a fine sense of the challenges facing the planet. We must understand the causes of those problems and their proposed remedies. We need a sense of who's doing good work in the field and what their approaches are. We have to be aware of the law of unintended consequences and retain enough self-honesty to avoid the ethical pitfalls of power. This takes both a triage doctor's cold assessment of one's ability to impact a given situation and a good teacher's understanding that change is not always subject to calculation, and that when brilliance emerges it is not always subject to the normal rules. Seeing clearly, being honest and thinking ahead are not easy even when large amounts of money are not at stake.

The worldchanging philanthropist's job grows more difficult as our insight into the interwoven nature of the world's problems grows more clear. We know now that efforts to fix a single problem with a single, simple solution rarely succeed. For instance, it turns out that if we're serious about addressing humanitarian crisis, violence and environmental decline in conflict-torn regions, we'd better be prepared to address them all at once and holistically. We are just beginning to see truly effective philanthropy that thinks about its grantmaking in terms of systems, interconnections, leverage points and payoffs which are slow but powerful. We can hope that this big-picture, long-term giving proves to be a growing trend.

But it turns out that there may be some bigger, more fundamental challenges to the practice of worldchanging philanthropy.

[Isaiah Mpski]

Sell all that ye have and follow me to Mexico where we will establish a throne for Laird Daniel.
There's gold in them thar hills people.

[drew hempel]

My parents just went to Cozumel. They are doing the 60 day fast and abstinence ritual followed by throwing a young female virgin down into the Cenote for spirit communication. NOT.

[Isaiah Mpski]

How's the weather up there in the vast frozen wasteland Lord Hemp.
Cold enough for you?
Are you ready to migrate to Mexico and make Daniel a King?