While I am happy to acknowledge that many foundations provide long term, unrestricted funding, a question I’ve had for a long time about philanthropy writ large still persists: Why is it that the one thing most nonprofits say they need – multiyear, unrestricted funding – is the one thing many foundations won’t give them? It’s…
How can we re-imagine a brighter future through social enterprise? This question was at the heart of the recent Ashoka Future Forum, which attracted about 400 social entrepreneurs from around the world. Many of the sessions focused on cultivating mindfulness, trust, and empathy, and offered ideas about what the future could look like with more…
There are too many wonderful things to mention about the 3rd Annual Alliance for Girls Conference I attended this past Wednesday. Alliance for Girls is a TWI annual grantee and throughout the conference many of TWI’s values were employed. Dialogue was a common tool used in sessions and relationship building was central to the way…
In recent conversations, including a few I had while at the Council on Foundations Annual Meeting, folks have asked how to adapt TWI’s 9 Practices of Trust Based Investment in their specific contexts. One family foundation executive asked, “How do I get my 24 person multi-generation family member board, to change the grant-making practices that…
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…