“WiseGen”…. If Only!

Recently, a wonderful young leader, Seth Cohen of Atlanta, wrote a blog piece advocating that younger leaders and funders would do well to learn from and not dismiss the wisdom of those whose life experience might provide welcome insights for them. He called that older group “WiseGen.” At first blush, I was inclined to read this as a “shout out” to my own work. After all, for several years, the name of this blog, the address of our website, and our domain name are all ‘WisePhilanthropy.com’, my book is “Saying ‘Yes’ Wisely”. Implicit is that there are things that one can learn from the real life experience of many generations of funders, and that the greatest gift I can give in my teaching and philanthropy advising is to help apply the wisdom of others to individual decision making. A... Continue Reading

A Plea for Less Guilt Inducing Philanthropy

You may think that this posting, my first in the year 2010, written just after the onslaught of end-of-year fundraising requests, is about the tone, content, and timing of those requests for our money. Indeed, one could have an interesting post about that, especially now that much of that previously wasted paper has been replaced by on-line requests which all come from the same script. “A week left”, “only 48 hours left” “last day to….” But I will let others with more expertise on the fundraising and development side tackle that. No, this posting is addressed to those of us who give money, and those of us who advise people how to do so. What concerns me is that those of us who write about philanthropy are increasingly doing so in a judgmental and guilt inducing manner. The guilt that I... Continue Reading

Giving and Gifting: A Message For the Season

With the gift giving season upon us, I am re-posting this seasonal message. Originally written in 2004, this has been requested and reprinted many times. ‘Tis the season…. For gifting and giving. Gifting focuses on the object; giving is about the subject. Gifting answers the question how much we give; giving shows how much we care. Gifting satisfies our lists; giving satisfies our life. Gifting fulfills our responsibility; giving expands our sensibilities; Charitable gifting rewards our bottom line; philanthropic giving celebrates our highest values. Gifting changes the mood; giving changes the world. Gifting expresses our generosity; giving expresses our love. May the holiday season teach us that the best gift of all is truly giving of oneself. It is the gift which gives back, and brings joy to... Continue Reading

Who Are the Experts?

from Wise Philanthropy: Philanthropedia – Some early observations and questions Technology allows and public culture encourages individuals to give to projects based on their own interest and to respond to projects as identified through a growing number of direct giving sites. These models permit a funder or donor with limited means to nevertheless play a key role in supporting a specific project and have reasonable confidence that the money is going directly to that project – without undue bureaucracy or mediation. This also allows such donors to be proactive rather than reactive to solicitations, which we all know can become annoying. However, we also know that this open source funding model has a weakness: where is the assessment of the quality of the project or of the organization? It... Continue Reading

The Innovation Generation: The “Values” Proposition

In my work with families and foundations helping them make good [for them] decisions about their giving strategies, there are two pre-condition steps which make all the difference: I help them understand their “culture” and their “values.” Without an understanding of both of those, their philanthropy may be high quality but their satisfaction is likely not to be. So I spend a lot of time on both. With the critical mass of newer models of non profit organizations and giving models, it is interesting to step back to see what it looks like from the “culture” and “values” vantage. There is no need to rehearse here all of the developments of this era. Technology and communication have redefined how we do things, when we do things, with whom we do things. The question which remains is does... Continue Reading

You Don’t Need to Be Rich to Be a Philanthropist

The other evening, at a wonderful benefit event, honoring two genuinely deserving people who represent a new generation of philanthropic leadership, I had another one of those predictable conversations. “How much money does one need to have to utilize someone like you?” they asked. A question I am asked, in one form or anther, all the time. [In my case it is an easy answer: it doesn’t matter. I charge everyone by the project, not by the depth of one’s pocket or the scope of one’s giving.] Implicit in the question is that only the ultra rich or the super rich, or at least the very rich can afford the kind of advisory services which can make one a better, wiser, or more sophisticated. Only the rich can really be philanthropists. This is not true. The difference between being charitable and being... Continue Reading

Unemployment and Efficiency – A Necessary Connection?

It hit me – something is wrong with this picture. It hardly surprises when we read a press release announcing that another company or non profit has reduced its staffing – usually accompanied by a note of regret that financial exigencies – or some other carefully worded euphemism – necessitated these reductions. [A firing by any other name, even if part of a crowd, is the loss of a job.] The recent deep recession has almost inured us to these announcements – after all, what can one expect during a time when income, purchasing power, and contributions are down and prospects for improvement hardly in the offing? But in the last few days, two national not for profit organizations announced a restructuring which, incidentally, included staff reductions. What got my attention... Continue Reading

Funding for Success

As many readers and those who have heard me speak and teach about grantmaking know, one of my mantras is that funders should “fund for success.” My intention in this formulation was to challenge the tendency of many funders to ask how little they need to give for a project. They often assume that a grant request is padded and the grantseeker has built in an expectation of a discounted grant amount. Funders are not unreasonable in thinking this way. It is certainly true that there is a long history of grantseekers assuming that they will never get all that they ask for so they pad. It is also true that funders want their money to go further so they choose to give less, but to more recipients. Reasonable. What is also true is a more challenging cultural reality. Let’s be honest. Most funders made... Continue Reading

How One Organization Blew It – The View From This Side

This is not an unprecedented story but is a worthwhile morality tale for non-profit fundraisers. To ruffle as few feathers as possible, I won’t name names. I was recently honored by being elected Chair of an organization that has a very distinctive mission. There are a few other organizations with compatible but not identical missions and in a collegial manner, I extended a hand to the heads of several. The President of one of those organizations – one that does a fine job in its sphere – sent an email congratulating me and suggested that the member of their staff responsible for the areas of overlapping interest would soon be in touch to discuss mutual opportunities. The organization I now chair is neither a fundraising nor fund distributing organization, so the possible avenues for collaboration... Continue Reading

Partnerships and Mergers: The Hype and the Promise

Last summer I wrote a piece, Should you go it alone: partnerships and collaborations, on giving organizations a useful tool for the ifs and hows of partnerships and mergers. It is one of the most requested pieces I have ever written. It was based on fairly extensive experience in the area: both as the ceo of a foundation which invested heavily in such partnerships and as a periodic consultant to organizations which were exploring mergers and partnerships. Any observer of the independent sector is well aware that this topic continues to be at the top of the agenda of many organizations and funders. The reasons are obvious and persuasive: are there duplications of services or back-office support that can be eliminated for immediate financial savings? Can one larger better-funded organization reach the... Continue Reading

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