Sean Stannard-Stockton at Tactical Philanthropy asks, "Would you listen to a Podcast interview with someone who had something interesting to say about philanthropy?" He summarizes comments here. Let's say by way of comparison that the question were, "Would you listen to a podcast by on 'selling'?" Truth is, it would matter who was selling what to whom. I am somewhat interested in hearing someone speak on "philanthropy," but might be quite interested in hearing, say, a progressive philanthropist on how and why she funds alternative media, or a religious conservative on why he funds Heritage. That is, philanthropy is a large topic and also diffuse. Related to it are politics, grassroots giving, charity, activism, social organizing, high society, the ethics and politics of a just society, voluntarism, the manners and more of the rich, patterns of peer to peer giving at all social levels, and then a whole range of specific causes and organizations donors fund. Also related to philanthropy are services for the wealthy such as financial planning, estate planning, and legacy planning. Also related to philanthropy are family considerations, like how much to leave to children, or raising healthy families, or passing on values as well as wealth to heirs. Also related to philanthropy are the tools and techniques of giving. So, given how large, even nebulous, is the general topic, I would be want to know the "POV" of the blog offering the podcasts and would hope there would be more to it than interviewing a procession of donors. I would be most likely to listen if the blog has a clear perspective, as does say, Philanthropy Roundtable, or Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal, The Philanthropic Initiative, Tides, or Inspired Legacies. I would prefer to listen to a podcast by an interviewer, like Bill Schambra at Bradley Center, who consistently infuriates me with a well thought out tar-baby of a polemical position, rather than listen to what seems more like well intentioned niceness about a nice subject with two nice people. (Check out the videocasts of Tuesdays at TPI. They are well thought out, with first rate participants, and built around interesting themes laid out in excellent essays by H. Peter Karoff, but the videocasts come across in our hyped up age as bland to a fault, though perhaps daring by the standards of the field.)
With the podcast I would want bios of the interviewer and interviewee, and if not a transcript then at least a summary of the key points made as a "blurb" I could read prior to starting the podcast itself. My main interest in the podcast as opposed to a text is that the voice can say or betray so much about the donor's "being in the world," his or her deportment, style, consciousnesses or semi-unconsciousness. I would want to listen to see what kind of creature speaks here from what milieu, from what taken for granted life world, within what decorum. And, I would want to hear an interviewer who was not daunted, or obsequious. I would want an interviewer who had the nerve to probe the unthought in what the donor is and says. Such an interviewer might want to come dressed as a clown or a dolt from out of town. (Could you get Sacha Baron Cohen as an interviewer?)
