conversation

Endings and Beginnings

By August 16, 2011

By Chris Phillips “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” —T. S. Eliot The very first Socrates Café dialogue I held at Collage II coffee house in 1996 in Montclair, New Jersey, was on the question,…

Read more

More Than Money – Foundations As Strategic Partners

By June 22, 2011

By Chris Gates, Executive Director, PACE – Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement As one of 38 affinity groups of the Council on Foundations, people are often confused about the role that we play in the philanthropic sector. PACE, and other affinity groups like it, works as a learning collaborative of funders doing work in the…

Read more

Utopian Storytelling

By June 17, 2011

By John Esterle What does utopia mean to you? For most of us the word conjures up images of an idyllic world — so idyllic in fact as to be seen as something that’s completely unrealistic or has an inevitable dark, social engineering side to it. Filmmaker Sam Green creatively explores different facets of the…

Read more

Giving on the Right-Side of the Brain: Beauty = Truth

By June 8, 2011

By CJ Callen “Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know” – Jon Keats “All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” – Galileo Galilei Once I took a night class on “drawing on the right-side…

Read more

I Only Know What I Know

By April 21, 2011

April 13, 2011Sue Ellen McCann I was recently introduced to the concept of “evaluation” – in my case, a process in which I would receive feedback from an outside organization on my work process and product. At first, I thought, “Oh, great, another report card!” Memories of exchanges echoing the words “you should have done…

Read more