Gift Hub

Ning

Ning. For social networking.  Seems quite well designed and might be a great way to build a network (public or private) for civic or philanthropic purposes. 

The Three Penny Opera

Might it be time to bring The Three Penny Opera back to Broadway? After Gore's success at the Academy Awards, perhaps Skoll could fund it. When truth is inconvenient, documentaries are good, but satire set to jazz may be better. 

One Word Sermon

My one word sermon? "Connect" is what comes to mind.  What is your one word sermon?

Philanthropy, Love, and Evolution

Interesting people, burning questions, and important readings in progressive philanthropy. From a symposium held in June of 2006. 

Tracy Gary Podcast

Tracy interviewed by Sean Stannard-Stockton at Tactical Philanthropy on her own giving, her work with donors, and her sense of the emerging field of philanthropic planning. I am proud to call her my friend.

Maintaining Our Social Order

This from Alternet on the Bush Budget and potential estate tax repeal; "Senator Bernie Sanders's office came up with some interesting numbers here."

If the Estate Tax were to be repealed completely, the estimated savings to just one family -- the Walton family, the heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune -- would be about $32.7 billion dollars over the next ten years. The proposed reductions to Medicaid over the same time frame? $28 billion."

United for a Fair Economy follows the endless reemergence of tax breaks for the best connected and wealthiest families in America.  For those who would rather enjoy life than worry about economic justice, I recommend happiness-themed reality tv.  Or maybe social ventures with a double bottom line will end political corruption and favor trading.  Or maybe if foundations dump the stock of Mars and buy Ben and Jerry's  the world will be a better place?  Do you think?

Me, I am going long on Humvee mounted  heat rays  "developed" (per NPR) "as a way to disperse threatening crowds. "  Another good option, in dispersing threatening crowds,  is martial law, detention centers, secret military tribunals and  the repeal of habeas corpus.  It is good that our government is thinking ahead on how best to protect us -  our Ruling Families and we who serve them faithfully - from threatening crowds of insurgents if the happiness tv does not work out as planned. 

I hope Jay Hughes is up to the job of turning piratical oligarchs into public spirited American Aristocrats before the threatening crowds tear the place up.   As The Morals Tutor to America's Wealthiest Families I feel remiss when I consider the Coors, Walton, or Mars Dynasts, and so many others. I feel that I have failed not only them, and my Noble Trade, but also my country. Had I only been able to discipline the children of our leading families when they were young, but the liberal arts have fallen into disrepute, and we who teach those arts must go naked and mad into the streets, accosting passersby,  as did Diogenes.

Blogroll at The Chronicle of Philanthropy

The Chronicle has compiled a summary of blogs of interest to people in the nonprofit world. And Gifthub made the list.  As a bounty hunter and fencer of stolen goods in real life, I am pleased to pass online as an expert in Philanthropy.  It opens all kinds of doors to the Affluent. Wait until I tell my parole officer; maybe I can finally lose this ankle bracelet.

Reuniting America

Would healing the polarization of Red and Blue be a good thing? Or would it vitiate the enormous investment made in wedge issues by funders on both sides? Is revitalizing democracy itself a political viewpoint? If so, who is on the other side?

Is Philanthropy Blogging Respectable Yet?

Philanthropybeat is blogging again. Wish Albert Ruesga would join back in.  Maybe we need a Giving Blog Rating System; one to five white gloves.  The higher the glove count the lower the chance of altering the frame of the discourse. Natter and chatter, keep it upbeat. Let's save the world, gang, and offend no one in charge of the world as it is. No wonder Albert took it on the lam.  Mummy Minim, of the East Coast Hyena-Minims, was asking about him just the other day. Was he taking his Prozac? "No," I told her, "Albert is very well adjusted. He sees a chiropractor for that." "Well," she said, "that is as  may be, but he should see a barber about that dreadful  goatee.  Tell Albert and PB that if they prove themselves reliable, I will invite them both to speak at Council on Foundations on 'Changing the World: Grant Making from a Lackey's Perspective.'"

Cutting People Open Blogs

What do you do? "I cut people open." Well, Jack The Ripper,  a surgeon,  a recreational sadist, a professional interrogator,  a mortician, a coroner, and a street gang member might all say that. When I say I blog about giving, I wonder if I am not making the same kind of mistake. "Giving" like "cutting people open" is a category both so inclusive and so eclectic as to be almost meaningless, but also too narrow to be meaningful. For giving in a particular instance to come into focus you need to know who is giving what to whom, how, when, for what purpose, in the light of what understanding, with what reciprocal flows. Cutting People Open Blogs. Actually, that would probably be pretty interesting and the overlap with Giving Blogs might be nontrivial as two means to the same end, in various cases.  For the record, the greatest of all gifts is satire - cutting people open for their own good and that of society as well.