The Whitman Institute

A Climate Tipping Point?

By September 11, 2015

This week we wanted to highlight an article by our funder friend Compton Foundation. This post was first published on their site September 10th.  “Yet all is not lost. Human beings, while capable of the worst, are also capable of rising above themselves, choosing again what is good, and making a new start.” Laudato Si…

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Can Black Lives Matter to Philanthropy?

By September 1, 2015

The original question in the title of this article (reposted below) is “Can Philanthropy Make Black Lives Matter?”  Our reaction at TWI is that philanthropy alone probably cannot wholesale shift hundreds of years of institutional racism and prevalent cultural attitudes.  That would take an intersectional, coordinated set of movements from all sectors.  We do believe…

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12 Awesome Things Funders Do

By August 19, 2015

We at TWI are in full agreement with Vu Le‘s recent post about 12 Things Funders Do right.  In fact, many of the 12 show up on TWI’s own compendium of 9 Practices of Trust-based Investment.  In a side by side comparison, it’s clear that respect, transparency, partnering in a true spirit of service, feedback…

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Funder Q&A: The Power of Listening to Your Grantees

By July 31, 2015

This was originally posted on The Center for Effective Philanthropy website on July 23rd, written by Ethan McCoy. On June 2, Don Matteson, chief program officer at The Peter and Elizabeth C. Tower Foundation, joined CEP’s Naomi Orensten for an informative and lively webinar about the Grantee Perception Report® (GPR). In the conversation, Don discussed…

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