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Philanthropy In/Sight to Map Scope and Impact of Philanthropy

PBC — 2009-07-13T15:25:19-05:00

Foundation Center:

Philanthropy In/Sight^TM New Online Data Visualization Tool Maps Scope and Impact of Philanthropy Worldwide.

Philanthropy

PBC — 2009-07-11T14:25:25-05:00

A Streetcar named Philanthropy. Blanche played by some kind of Russian Countess.

How Bad Is It?

PBC — 2009-07-11T14:19:06-05:00

July 22 at Foundation Center:

Please join us as Bradford K. Smith, president of the Foundation Center, and Robert G. Ottenhoff, president and chief executive officer of GuideStar, jointly address one of the most critical issues in the nonprofit sector today: the impact of the economic crisis on nonprofit organizations and on the foundations that support their work.

How Double Bottom Lines become a Great Big Double Bind

PBC — 2009-07-10T17:34:09-05:00

Imagine a 4 cell matrix:

Society Wins/ I Win
Society Wins/ I Lose
Society Loses/I Lose
Society Loses/I Win

We all want to be in the first cell. Many of the brands we trust and those who lead them or invest in them are in cell 4. Economic theory insults human nature by suggesting that no one goes knowingly into cells 2 or 3. The second cell is the one that most fascinates me. What happens when we are faced with 2, as a personal choice, when it cannot be evaded, when no amount of whisky, prozac, positive mental attitude, therapy, or employee counseling, can cure us of seeing the choice for what it is? Or, an act happens, befalls us, that might be called a choice, but feels like a compulsion, or an inspiration, a fugue, or a temporary loss of sanity, and we find ourselves being said to have chosen 2. "I report to the big guy upstairs and I win regardless" is one answer to how we did something so stupid. Another might be, "the devil made me do it." Givers, soldiers in battle, whistle-blowers, saints on crosses, poets writing immortal poems that no one will read until after the poet's death, aren't these all of a spirit? Some will say it is the holy spirit, others will recognize that it precedes Christianity and that many of its most memorable proponents were madmen, holy fools, beggars, rogues, doxies impersonating fine gentleman and ladies, and scapegrace tricksters.

Hermes, sacred to pickpockets, merchants, prostitutes, and ambassadors, frequents the crossroads, a phallic god of inspiration, fertility, poison and medicine (he of the snake entwined cadeuces) whose statue points towards the wrong road, where the winner, named Oedipus loses all and so finds himself. There by the statue burns the pharmakos that the city might be saved in time of plague. There Robert Johnson sold his soul for hellacious riffs on the blues guitar. Perhaps a prodigal philanthropist when inspired might be audacious like that. "Give all you have to the poor and follow me" - as if. Jesus Effing Christ, what am I, crazy?

Change your Bank, Change the World

PBC — 2009-07-10T16:28:48-05:00

4 minute video by Kyle Thiermann. Pull your money out of banks that fund coal plants and other destructive but profitable single bottom line businesses? David slew Goliath because he knew where and how to plant a small smooth stone where it would do the most good. Behind videos like this is a woman who knows Goliath from days old. As insiders decide to protect the public interest by sharing their insights in Goliath with David, the balance of power may shift. How many of us who have "risen" or fallen into insider status, have said, how often, "Yeah, it certainly sucks, and it may be immoral as hell but it is my job." How many bankers, investment professionals, slap-suit happy litigaters, mortage brokers, or governent policy makers have said that to themselves stoked on cocaine, or half blind and whisky drunk, or blurted it out to spouse, prostitute, priest or therapist? What if our biggest contribution to the public good, short of suicide, or as a productive form of career suicide, might be shifting into work that allows us to say what we know to be true? Healing the body politic means first healing ourselves of the fear of saying in public what we would know to be true, were we not corrupt to the core.

Raising the Law from the Dead

PBC — 2009-07-10T13:35:02-05:00

Whom do we serve in philanthropy as advisors to wealth? The donor? The nonprofit? Those served by the nonprofit?

Say perhaps that we serve what the donor serves. And if you try to articulate that in words suited to the task you will find, to your embarassment, that bland, neutered, politically correct, passionless, well-hedged, diffident language fails. To articulate the higher we serve is the work of theology, ethics, and the arts. Its proper language, per God Himself, sounds like this: "And the lukewarm he spits from his mouth." To open a space where the language of that which we serve enters us and makes itself heard through our faltering conversation is the work of churches and schools.

Why, then, O Lord! hast thou cast charity ("Faith, hope, charity and the greatest of these is charity") among the scribes and the pharisees in tax, legal, and financial services? Send, O Lord, thy divine breath of love (charity) among these near-dead embers that they might scatter in conflagration. If you can raise the dead, cure the blind, or reform a common prostitute, how might thou liftest up a top tax attorney?

Villon's Lasting Legacy

PBC — 2009-07-10T08:10:22-05:00

In jail in Paris, for petty theft, he wrote in 1458 his immortal Testament. Villon had, under torture, confessed to plotting to rob a monk, and was condemned to hang. Today he would have had to see an attorney, had he wanted, as he did, to bequeath his cadaver to the poor, his trousers to an old friend, his soul to the mercy of God. To create the last will and testament under sentence of death - is that not how all such paperwork is completed? Yet, we who hire the best legal help toast the victory! Uncle Sam has been defeated, though, our bones outlast our spirit which died long since. How different our lives and death would be if it was poets, not attorneys who had a monopoly on Testatements.

The Internationale Owned By?

PBC — 2009-06-30T16:40:44-05:00

Actor whistles t he Internationale for 7 seconds on camera and receives a bill for 1,000 euros for the use of copyrighted intellectual property. Fortunately, here in the US the former Russian National Anthem is in the public domain and you can whistle it for nothing. (Thank you, Tom, for the link. What do I owe you?)

Tough Times Survey Results

PBC — 2009-06-30T16:31:59-05:00

From Bridgespan a telling graphic showing how badly nonprofits have suffered in the last 6 months. More detailed information here.

Private Money, Public Good

PBC — 2009-06-28T20:15:34-05:00

How Public is Private Philanthropy? by Evelyn Brody and John Tyler in pdf published by The Philanthropy Roundtable. The authors conclude that there is no basis in curent law for treating private foundations as public money to be controlled in their grants, say, by government action. The poor will have to look to the taxpayer, not the foundations for their entitlement programs. As a practical matter, if the government begins to treat foundation money as their money, fewer foundations will be set up. A foundation, if controlled in its grants by government, would be just another, more elaborate way to pay taxes. Why bother?

To level society, NCRP, we need a bigger bulldozer. Let's abolish, for example, intellectual property.

The Intellectual Property of the Holy Spirit

PBC — 2009-06-28T19:57:41-05:00

Improprieties:

We in the US and elsewhere have had the habit, for perhaps too long, of assuming that conversation can be bottled up inside a piece of thingliness - a vessel like a book, a CD, DVD, digital file, painting, etc. -- and presented as a self-sufficient, closed object which can then be sold. I don't think that's what "markets are conversations" was intended to mean, but the closing of the conversation, like the enclosure of the commons, leads to improper notions of something as "a property," and then, "intellectual property."

Stalin had Mandelstam tortured and shot for an aphorism, "Crag-dweller of the Kremlin." The image was so good the poet recited it to friends, and it spread to an informant, then passes down to us, immortal though the poet died miserably. Now, that Russia has become a market economy, I am sure Mandelstam's heir's intellectual property rights are protected. In that way, I guess, the poet is well compensated.

Vigilante Philanthropist Glorified on TV

PBC — 2009-06-25T18:09:13-05:00

Interesting response by Steve Gunderson of Council on Foundations to the NBC show, The Philanthropist. He quotes a friend as saying, "The Philanthropist is to philanthropy what the Pink Panther is to police work." The PR says it follows the heroic adventures of Teddy Rist, billionaire playboy-turned-vigilante philanthropist, taking him across the globe from Haiti to Myanmar, Kashmir to Paris, Kosovo to San Diego.” In the interest of setting the record staight, I do think we should encourage the Council on Foundations to offer a prize annually to the playboy-billionaire-turned-vigilante-philanthropist" who really does do the most good in the world. Success to significance gone wild.

Foundations Dancing with Government

PBC — 2009-06-24T13:53:00-05:00

Lauren Foster in Prospect on how foundations are adapting to the Obama adminstration. In that dance who leads and who follows?

Jolkona Foundation

PBC — 2009-06-23T19:01:41-05:00

Jolkona Foundation:

Jolkona Foundation makes it easy for you to make a difference by allowing you to make small donations to projects of your choice and to see the impact of every donation."

Web 2.0 microphilanthropy with an emphasis on interaction, human connection, and consideration of impact. The site does draw you in. Doesn't feel like shopping, feels more like KIVA, though it fosters micro-philanthropy rather than loans. As with Kiva, Jolkona "goes direct" to the end recipient, giving you a sense that your donation did something in particular for someone or something in particular. This disintermediation of nonprofits is not so easy to bring off. When working with projects and people who are not within an existing nonprofit, the Foundation has to, presumably, exercise "expenditure responsibility," in providing due diligence and and ongoing supervision. Apparently, Jolkona undertakes this.

Added Later: Adnan Azfar Mahmud of Jolkona Foundation answered specific questions by email. The Q & A is posted with her permission.

Q. You exercise expenditure responsibility over projects that are not under a nonprofit umbrella?

A. Not quite. Our partners already have 501c3 status and run their own projects. Our goal is to bring together these projects in 1 place so that our users can easily pick projects to donate. The big difference is that our partners are committed to showing impact for every donation that they receive. For example, our partner – Children of Uganda – work with orphans in Uganda. With $25, a donor can feed 5 children for an entire week. In return Children of Uganda will send the donor list of the food items purchased for the $25. All of this is done over the web. Let me know if that answers your question.Q. How do you fund the site and the due diligence process? So far we have been finding partner organizations mostly through recommendations and Internet searches. We have an extensive selection process and you can find information about it here: http://www.jolkona.org/partnering-with-us.html

Q. Could not easily see the underlying financial stuff from your site. Might it be good to put the answer to the obvious question about costs and fees somewhere it can readily been seen?

A. We transfer 100% of every gift to our partner. We have a separate fund – called Kona Fund – to help with our operations. We do separate fundraising for that account. Our users can also give to Kona Fund separately from the projects. You can find info on Kona Fund here: http://www.jolkona.org/kona-fund.html We also have a FAQ page here: http://www.jolkona.org/faq.html) which we hope answers most questions. We are continuing to look for ways to better expose these questions.

Quite responsive, to these queries, I would say. Thank you, Adnan.

MakeLuxuryCount.org

PBC — 2009-06-22T14:45:26-05:00

Luxury brand shopping initiatives for philanthropy. The more luxuries you buy, the more you do for humanity. If onlyTrimalchio could have made his lifestyle count. Rome might never have fallen to the Barbarians.

The Costs and Benefits of Pomposity

PBC — 2009-06-21T22:01:30-05:00

Euan on the price of pomposity. I have found, though, that now that I have become an unarguably pompous ass that I do fit in better with my chosen field of moral tutoring.

Philanthropic Planning for Dynastic Families

PBC — 2009-06-21T11:07:10-05:00

Actually, these families might better be described, maybe, as cultured, educated, civicly engaged, old money families, many of whom are limousine liberals. Noblesse oblige bred in the bone. Aristocracy in all but name. Often drive beat up old cars and live humbly. Good people who have lived beyond the crass concerns of the tax-centered advisors. May, in certain families, be progressive or radical. Liberally educated third and fourth generation heirs who draw their models from Greece and Rome and Augustan England filtered through good boarding schools. They, unlike their culturally cretinous CPA, read at age 15 Marcus Aurelius, Castiglione's Book of the Courtier, Dante, Chaucer. Anyway, here is a take on philanthropy for dynastic families from the AIPA Wealth Insider.

Philanthropy When Kingdom Comes

PBC — 2009-06-20T14:17:56-05:00

Heaven on earth:

Option A: The Banks hold $100 billion more money than is true today in accounts treated as philanthropic under the tax code, though little money leaks out into charitable projects. In the streets the hungry masses seethe.
Option B: The Banks hold $100 billion less money than is true today because the money was expended in charitable projects. In the streets hungry stock brokers seethe.

I work well under either option. Happy to help the brokers thrive. Happy to help the poor get fed. Philanthropy is a good friend of the rich and those who serve them; a good friend of the poor and those who feed them. It all works out if you are flexible.

The Fall of GM and the Rise of Socialism

PBC — 2009-06-20T12:06:29-05:00

Twitter contextualized in the history of socialism triumphant. The end of history approaches.

Pre-Revolutionary Society Rooms

PBC — 2009-06-18T17:42:19-05:00

What moves worthwhile social change? I mean, like, sure, God. But how does He work through the likes of us? Wait for some philanthropist to fund it? Why does that seem unlikely, what with the Camel and all. More likely that if God wanted social change He would have the Holy Spirit call a few thinkers or people of conscience together, with a tongue of flame or some such sign. Or maybe the eloquence of the voices that emerge from such conclaves would do it. I don't known. Ask Jeremy.