The New Voices of Giving

If you haven't joined Omidyar.net you might want to check it out. Good discussions of giving, prosocial business, and social venture philanthropy. See the same names wherever I go these days, including Ted Ernst, Julie Evans, Marty Kearns, and Tom Munnecke. Interesting to see how the conversation about new models of giving is being conducted in so many venues. I hear talk about uplift, social ventures, networks, and even about activism, political engagement, and organizing. Even serious talk about what it means for a society to be democratic, stronger for all the differences of opinion and party. You get the impression that something will emerge as new a e-bay and as old as mutual trust and respect. Movement? Hub? Business? Network? Political force? A Gift Circle? What? Those who are read this stuff, what do you intuit about the next steps? It sure isn't elite philanthropy, old school. And it isn't left versus right, either. It isn't just bottom up (witness Omidyar on line chatting on his site), nor top down. It is peer to peer where wealth is less important than the ability to communicate, learn, and cooperate. Very promising. What Tom Munnecke would call a "a pattern of uplift."

Comments

[Ted Ernst]

Ashley Cooper and Michael Herman are playing over there as well. Working together this way sure gives me a feeling of overwhelmingly positive future!

[Phil]

Feels like things are warming up.