As last night’s debate demonstrated again, the GOP debates in this 2016 election season look more like ridiculous reality television than robust, complex, and respectful discussion of matters of meaning – particularly in addressing the deep needs and divides of this nation. One ancient definition of debate is to “smash together” which certainly seems to be…
Can love be the right metric for a billion dollar philanthropy? While this post by Suzanne Guillette seems to argue both for and against this premise – I propose that love can be a metric for authentic partnerships, particularly when power and money are involved. While we and many others in the sector have chorused that multi-year,…
This article was originally published on June 12, 2015 on the Philanthropy NorthWest site. We want to highlight the convening Community Democracy held and uplift the work they are doing. Sindhu Knotz, Partner, The Giving Practice Last week, Community Democracy Workshop partnered with The Ford Family Foundation to host a peer learning exchange among funders…
At my first session at the Ashoka Future Forum called “Scaling Trust,” I witnessed again the power of story and vulnerability. A woman of color executive director leading a movement of thousands strong asked a room full of social entrepreneurs, nonprofit executives, funders, and investors: In fundraising, why do I so often have to choose between…
Lately I’ve been inspired by the notion of changing the rules of the philanthropy game here in the U.S., like Professor Ray Madoff’s challenge to institutions with over six hundred billion dollar endowments be required to pay out more than 5% and stop using “charities” as tax shelters for amassing wealth. Professor Madoff’s ideas seem…