Did the dream of open source philanthropy die with the beating Holden Karnofsky has taken? Will the lesson learned inside the closed world of elite philanthropy be that it should stay closed? That insiders should continue to meet with insiders in "safe places," since the net is such a dangerous place. I think I hear the sound of many doors, quietly closing.
Give me a break, please. One apparently promising, self promoting whiz kid gets his wrist slapped for a gross violation of the principles that his org was purportedly created to advance and you're prepared to pronounce the age of open source philanthropy dead in its infancy??? There continue to be great opportunities for HONEST open source philanthropy.
The Net is a dangerous place - though the degrees of risk vary - when predators and charlatans pretend to be something they are not. For some the risk is their lives or health, for others (e.g. Whole Foods investors and the distant beneficiaries of African bank accounts)it's their fortunes. All that was at risk in this case was one career and the integrity of a nascent entity hype-ing itself as a breath of fresh air. The loss is negligible. The lessons are clear. Long live honest, open source philanthropy.
Posted by: DTKBoomer | January 07, 2008 at 02:23 PM
I think your sense is correct, and it will fuel more speculation at MeFi and elsewhere, that philanthropoids just don’t “get it” about Holden; that they’re “circling the wagons”; that it’s net communities that will ultimately pay the price for daring to attack “one of theirs”; etcetera.
But people both at MeFi and GiftHub have raised legitimate questions about how to understand the rights and responsibilities of online communities.
Are they, as Miko argues in http://metatalk.metafilter.com/15575/Fallout-from-the-Givewell-affair#498387”>this very thoughtful post, like hometowns, sharing a cyber-geography as well as the bonds of town ordinances, regional culture, and the like? And if they are, can we really hold the vicar accountable for the ravings of the town drunk?
Or do online communities have special responsibilities? Do communities like GiftHub that embrace Carnival owe it to newcomers to make the rules of posting and interpretation clear, to make more of an effort to welcome them? Should communities like MeFi, especially when they get beyond a certain size, pay closer attention to the effects of using perhaps too light a moderating hand?
Many people left this episode with new insights. Many more, I believe, tasted blood and liked it.
I also believe that simply agreeing that all is well won’t work. It seems the internet has become a kind of Hobbesian state of nature. Who will moderate amongst the warring tribes? And once that happens, doesn't it start to feel more like the so-called Real World, in which case zzzzzzz?
Some people have seen the future, and they want to get off.
Posted by: Albert | January 07, 2008 at 02:50 PM
DTKBoomer,
Open source philanthropy was a counter-cultural ideal within philanthropy. Holden was of interest, I think, to many of us because he had emerged as the agitator for it. He was getting some attention and some traction. There is absolutely no good reason that the effort should die. But, the scene got so wild on line over the Holden thing that I am concerned that conservative risk averse philanthropy people will be less likely to venture on line, lest something dreadful happen. I do not believe that they should go back into safe spaces, but I do fear that they will use this as a rationale - "Did you see what those Barbarians did to one another? Who wants to expose our dignified organization to that kind of kerfuffle? We have better things to do than mix ourselves up in that. Let's have our event be offline, invitation only, and no bloggers." That is my concern.
Posted by: phil | January 07, 2008 at 03:08 PM
Albert,
Well put and well balanced. The "tasted blood part" is duly noted. The "Hobbesian state of nature" is also noted. Before addtressing any of that online, I want to talk with Josh offline by phone. One step at a time.
Posted by: phil | January 07, 2008 at 03:34 PM
Wait, you think conservative, risk-averse philanthropy people *can't* understand the simple rule, "Do not lie about who you are online when promoting your charity"? Really? Because it sure seems to me like a pretty easy takeaway lesson to remember from this episode.
That's where Holden screwed up, Phil. It would be nice if folks like you would take time to make that clear, instead of muddying the waters with vague hand-wringing about how "wild" things can get online.
Posted by: Todd Morman | January 07, 2008 at 04:23 PM
If you'll indulge my straight talk in your grand play just one more time....
Transparency wasn't the problem here. Hypocrisy was.
The lesson for the philanthropy sector is not "if you're transparent, this is what will happen to you, so shut the door and lock it tight." The lesson is, "Don't treat transparency like a buzzword."
Holden got hammered because he was impetuous, hubristic, and ham-handed. (Should that be himpetuous for the alliteration?) But Holden's transgression does not invalidate transparency, just as it doesn't invalidate the idea of Giftwell.
You said yourself there are 1000 Holdens ready to go rush in to the gap he just left. People want transparency. They want openness. I was reading on another philanthropy blog this morning (sorry, forgot which one) about the current trend of people my age (Gen X) and younger not giving as much as the WWII generation. And as much as it's our fault, I think the philanthropy community, with its backrooms and tea parties and drinks at the club, doesn't want to come into the places where we are and talk to us.
It's 2008, people. The philanthropy sector needs to stop acting like it's 1998, or 1978 for that matter. The ones that "get the web" first will survive. The rest will be remembered the way we remember Montgomery Ward, Tower Records, or the Cincinnati Post. Relics of an era that's passing.
Now, back to the carnival.
Posted by: dw | January 07, 2008 at 04:26 PM
One suggestion (I'm sure others have suggested it): What if each commmunity had a designated net-ambassador or envoy standing by to jump in and resolve disputes between groups? These wise people would come to some agreement on the process for talking through and resolving differences. Perhaps we could adopt some of what you and others did, Phil, as a model.
This would require, however, that all other members of these communities voluntary cease their track two diplomacy while the ambassadors attempted to reach a negotiated settlement. A restriction of speech, yes, but only for a short time and for a far greater good.
Posted by: Albert | January 07, 2008 at 04:30 PM
the internet has become a kind of Hobbesian state of nature
I would say it's evolving out of a Hobbesian state of nature, that this is part of that evolution, and that it's quite a good thing.
Hobbes thought that the human longing for peace and order gave rise to the use of Reason to defeat the disordered and cruel natural conditions of life. Hobbes:
"In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
I see similarities to an online environment in which anonymous and shifting identities roam free to advance their self-interest and take advantage of the credulousness of others. Isn't that condition more likely to result in distrust and lack of support for charities?
What many netizens call the 'Wild West days' of the earliest years of the web are long over, and as we've discovered new possibilities in extending our organizations and identities through the power of the web, we've alse needed to evolve more responsiblities and structures for online interaction. Yes, there are some semblances to the civilizing force in human history. Does that mean the web more closely resemebles real life? I don't think that's a Zzzzz. I think it's a good thing.
I see no reason reputable organizations wouldn't be willing to put more material online. There is no way that 'doors will close' if there is a clear and well-reasoned incentive to keep them open. If Holden was the only champion for this, that's regrettable; I can't imagine that it would be so terribly hard to find another one, better capable of understanding both worlds.
Posted by: Michelle Moon | January 07, 2008 at 05:05 PM
...I am concerned that conservative risk averse philanthropy people will be less likely to venture on line, lest something dreadful happen.
On the short side of things: I hope it doesn't have any severe chilling effect; I'm not in the philanthropy world, and so can't guess what the proportions of different degrees of conservativism are at this point.
However, the worst case scenario (and I don't say that lightly, because this would be frustrating indeed) is some generational gap that will inevitably close. If anti-tech conservatism in philanthropy is so pervasive now, it's a product of (lack of) comfort and familiarity, and that's something that will change as younger and/or more progressive people step into the game over time.
An obvious point, I suppose, and something fairly slow-burn as a salvation goes, but the inevitability is at least comforting as an upper bound.
Should communities like MeFi, especially when they get beyond a certain size, pay closer attention to the effects of using perhaps too light a moderating hand?
A big and interesting question, definitely. One of the things I've seen, looking at a lot of different larger online communities, is how different the feel is between constructed communities and organic ones.
Metafilter's the latter, for example; it has grown slowly over close to a decade, from a few dozen bloggers (back when blogging itself was still finding its feet) up to something like 35K registered accounts. Because it grew around its userbase, what it is and how it works is defined primarily by a sort of organic tension between moderation and (mostly) the collective community dynamic of the existing userbase.
On the other hand you have planned communites, like Yahoo! Answers, where a lot of money and planning and the expectation of a large crowd preceded the actual userbase. The result is a quick start under a fairly well-established (if, in the case of Yahoo! Answers, very sparesly moderated) structure. The userbase didn't define the site, the site defined who would want to use it.
There are a lot of sites that fall at various places along this continuum; I think that most of the larger sites that have a real sense of community fall toward the organic side, however, and that's what makes your question a lot trickier:
A site engineered to purpose, service- or function-oriented without as much of a cohesive sense of culture and mores, is likely a lot easier in some respects to steer: the site is a thing unto itself, and the people who use it are, well, users. The service provider dictates a change; some users stick, some bail, new ones join. You have the occasional minor revolt, but generally people are just glad to use whatever the useful thing it is that they're using.
Something organic, like Metafilter, is harder to steer in that respect, because the folks on the site are the site, not in terms of revenue or business health but in terms of what makes the site what it is. You try and steer that or alter that abruptly and you experience a kind of powerful (and, for the ongoing existence of the community, potentially very dangerous) backlash because you're not changing the terms of a service so much as altering a collective identity by fiat.
So the implications of the continuing growth of Mefi is one of those big things on our radar. There's your very good question of Should, but (especially with these more organic, community-driven sites) also the equally important question of How.
Posted by: Josh Millard | January 07, 2008 at 05:07 PM
What on earth for, Albert? Do we need ambassadors to talk to one another on the street?
Posted by: Michelle Moon | January 07, 2008 at 05:36 PM
Michelle, I get what you say, and I'm not jonesing for the Wild West days of the web. I'm no Hobbes scholar, but I thought his primary aim was to explain why people chose to take themselves out of the state of nature and permit themselves to be governed. It's for all the reasons you stated and more, including the need to resolve disputes between warring factions.
Will the Internet be, on balance, a civilizing force in the world ? This is a big question for me, ill-defined though it is. So many obvious plusses; so many disheartening minuses. Why expect it to be a civilizing force when all we're doing is sitting our old selves in front of our laptops? Can online communities engender the kind of discussion and deliberation that shifts our thinking? Sure. Can they effectively shift our moral compasses? I know it happens, but I believe it's very diffficult online (and certainly varies from community to community).
Posted by: Albert | January 07, 2008 at 06:05 PM
Michelle,
Interesting points about the evolution of order from disorder in Hobbbes. He ended up with a King. That was his solution to discord. A harsh King would enforce law and order. All would support the King since discord was the alternative. Benign despotism.
What we have today in the philanthropic space, are many who observe online but who do not participate, who are almost hesitating right now between going online or not.
A few years ago Gifthub and Lucy's Bernholz's blog and Albert's were about all there were. Now there are maybe two or three hundred. But many orgs do not have a vital online, interactive, presence at all.
Much of, if not 99%, of the real work of philanthropy is done behind closed doors, by invitation only. The phrase most often heard is "Safe Spaces." Last year, Lucy, I, and Sean at Tactical Philanthropy were invited to blog the annual Council on Foundations Meeting. (I couldn't attend.) Having an official blogger presence there was a very big deal. A real opening of a closed world.
My concern is that the dustup here will lead people to feel that blogging is a dangerous thing. That by entering bloggworld you may get mugged, or draw yourself or your org into a mud slinging contest. You mention shifting personas. That may be part of it, I am coming to think so myself, but so is cyber-bullying and bravado, the insults and put downs and rude remarks that were made here, one after another, not by one person, or several, but as with a gang who attack in formation, knowing that they have each other's back. When I went to MeFi, I really appreciate the way you personally extended yourself in my direction, as did Stavros and Languagehat, making a footing for me, but most of the comments directed to me were hostile, vituperative, snide, snarky, rude, contemptuous dismissive, or you might say macho posturing. Bullying is probably the best word for how it felt to me. Clearly for me that is another day in bloggerville. I have zero problem with it when I am the object of it. In fact, such battles lead to friendship. I sincerely hope for example that you and I end up as civic friends. Without this dustup we would never have met. So good things will come of it. But for the average nonprofit person or philanthropist, the brutal and insulting give and take modelled here in the closed thread and at Mefi is totally unacceptable and out of bounds. It is also largely unmoderated. No one stepped in from MeFi, over here, really, to say, "Come on, folks, lets cut these people a little slack, we are in their house." Instead it seemed like West Side Story and, "Let's rumble." (Both groups fell into that. I can think of specific examples from the Gifhtub side of polarising "us" and "them" remarks about home court advantage or whatever.) That tone of snark, of finding fault, of blaming the other person, of assuming the worst motives, of talking for victory rather than understanding, of always being in the right, and always putting the other in the wrong, is very unappealing to most people.
Enough with looking backwards in this long comment of mine.
Maybe looking forward, we might ask, "If knowing what we know now we were to create a space specifically for discussing philanthropy and civil society on line, what characteristics would that space have in order to attract and retain a first rate and growing audience of insiders and outsiders, of professional in giving, and also concerned citizens?"
1. No masks?
2. No tolerance for belligerence
3. No tolerance for threats online or off
4. No tolerance for active or veiled malice
5. A decorum of apologizing when norms are violated.
6. Active moderation by moderators able and willing to restrain the strongest and most vociferous members
6. Comment moderation on?
7. Invitatation only?
8. Biographical info in profile?
9. Liink from post to bio in profile?
10. Live email on every post?
11. Registration required?
12. Decorum of plain literal speech?
13. Closed space not visible to outiders or Google, behind a firewall?
I hesitate on this list because I am afraid that what it would do is to create online many of the stuffy safe places we already have. The benefit of the MeFi brutality and the Gifthub masquerade is that both do challenge the status quo. Both in an old 18th century phrase, "Turn the World Upside Down." That is good from my perspective.
In any case, what would be the ideal decorum for the conversation of philanthropy; or, do we need, maybe, different spaces for different decorums with links back and forth?
Posted by: phil | January 07, 2008 at 06:09 PM
Will the Internet be, on balance, a civilizing force in the world ?
I hate that line of thinking.
Do you think books are a civilizing force? After all, we've seen what happens when people twist the words of the Bible to align with their hideous agenda. We've seen downright nasty books filled with racist rhetoric sell well. We have kiss-and-tell books a mile high, scandalous novels, political invective... I wouldn't say books are all that civilizing.
Do you think newspapers are a civilizing force? They started wars. They commit libel and slander. They slant stories then claim there is no bias. Many barely report stories anymore, only scandal and celebrity... I wouldn't say newspapers are all that civilizing.
Do you think television is a civilizing force? Sound bites. 30 minute sitcoms. The boob tube. A visceral medium long on image but short on story. And yet again this love of celebrity... I wouldn't say television is all that civilizing.
But you would differ, I'd bet. You'd say that books meant learning, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the opening of minds. You'd say newspapers meant newsgathering, the columnist, Woodward and Bernstein, the Jumble. You'd say that TV meant Edward R. Murrow, Roots, Julia Child, nature shows, PBS.
The Internet is just like those other forms of media are. Treating like it's some form of destroyer of our culture is silly. It creates cultures, microcultures, niches. It connects people who never could be connected before.
The Internet is what it is -- a powerful tool of communication that is creating new communities where there never could be community before.
Posted by: dw | January 07, 2008 at 06:40 PM
Maybe looking forward, we might ask, "If knowing what we know now we were to create a space specifically for discussing philanthropy and civil society on line, what characteristics would that space have in order to attract and retain a first rate and growing audience?"
Hi, Phil and the entire philanthropy sector. Welcome to the last six years of the blogosphere.
Every decision has a consequence. No comments, no feedback -- people don't like to e-mail all that much. Comments mean spam and trolling. Moderation means accusations of editing. And that's just one piece of the interaction issue, which itself is just one more jigsaw puzzle piece.
But it's 2008 (have I said that enough?) There are plenty of case studies to go from in building such a community. Honestly, if you just pick one model and go for it, the NFP world would already be way ahead of where it is now.
Posted by: dw | January 07, 2008 at 06:55 PM
Dw,
Albert is in the foundation world. I work with professional advisors in "real life" around philanthropy and am just drawn to giving and givers as a citizen. Maybe we could ask, "Will the internet, and the friendships and networks formed their, help us build a better democracy, a more vital civic life, and a culture of greater generosity?" That is a question that matters to me.
I did say at one point in this long conversation that my goal was to uplift giving. Michelle, I recall, suggested that was not her goal. Of course we all have many goals and come to the net for many purposes.
But here at Gifthub our topic is civil society, democracy (the state of), and giving. So, we are asking what can we learn and do based that will have positive effects for our society, using the net as a meeting ground, or public square, not just a market, or even just a mosh pit.
Books can be good or bad, so can media. What can we do to build in bloggerville a public space conducive to giving in the broadest sense, not just of money, but of time, talent, and learning, passion, and the love of our humankind (caritas, philia). That may seem dopey enough, but that is the question that has drawn us here to this little community, and keeps us here. The masks and satire are secondary to that purpose and maybe sometimes a distraction from it. (Asking about a better world makes even we idealists cynical sometimes, and the founder of that movement, the Cynics was Diogenes and he did live naked in a barrel.)
Posted by: phil | January 07, 2008 at 06:56 PM
In any case, what would be the ideal decorum for the conversation of philanthropy; or, do we need, maybe, different spaces for different decorums with links back and forth?
I think the latter's probably more on target. It's more realistic, certainly; these things are only going to exist if someone builds them, and different people will have different goals and visions. They'll build to different needs.
I don't think caution about building an on-line facsimile to the "stuffy safe places" is necessary; that'd be one of the things I'd expect, really. Cater to the conservative folks by asking them to change their medium but not their mores, basically.
There's tougher questions than that, practically speaking. Would such a place work? Would it be interesting enough or vital enough to get folks engaged and keep them so? What would their incentives be for spending time there? Who would the intended audience be?
I could treat your dozen items there as a bitfield and define four or five broad models to answer the question differently.
Posted by: Josh Millard | January 07, 2008 at 07:00 PM
Maybe we could ask, "Will the internet, and the friendships and networks formed their, help us build a better democracy, a more vital civic life, and a culture of greater generosity?"
See, this is a silly question to me, being the eternal Internet optimist. Of course it will. But we have to make the choice to use it for good.
The bigger, more important question is "How?" And that's where we go all over the place. But it has to begin with the conscious decision -- "I want to use this tool for good, to build and rebuild, to construct and mobilize."
You know? It's kinda like money. Money's a fairly neutral tool for all sorts of good and evil. The problem comes when we attach too much value to it and, as you would say, reach "wealth bondage." But you can make a choice with money, just as you can with the Internet.
The question for me is "how?" How do you have civil, public square discourse? How do you change the world? How do you build democracy? I think it's all possible. The only question is figuring out how to use the tool to get there.
Posted by: dw | January 07, 2008 at 07:17 PM
DW,
This blog basically tracks the evolution of giving spaces online and off. So, we have probably blogged at one time or another about most of the online efforts. You can find them in the sidebar to the right. If I have missed an important one, or not so important ones, I would appreciate a link.
So, we are pretty well up on what is happening out there in the giving space. What I am saying is that so far, there is not much real sharing online among established insiders. That was Holden's critique; that was part of why people did give him a hearing; he was right on that point; and, he challenged the status quo on that point.
That leaves us with the question of how we pick up the fallen torch, for more open spaces in philanthropy. Yes, I am sure there are models, and you might be a resource, if you wished, in pointing to them or discussing what works.
Since Omidyar.net closed (and that was a story in itself, how that space went) there has not been a key place to go for online conversations about giving. GH, Lucy Bernholz's blog, Sean at Tactical Philanthropy, Albert at White Courtesy Telephone, and a few others have some traction and we blog back and forth. We have more observers than participatns. I feel that this was a critical moment. The momentum, until a few days ago, was towards much more online interaction. Somehwhat improbably this guy Holden had the ear of the press. He was pushing hard to open spaces.
Now this: Holden did bad. Then crash and burn.
Not your problem. Not your fault he scewed up. But we in the conversation of giving have to pick up the pieces; we have to ask, what we have learned and how we can make an open and inclusive space for the giving conversation, one that will not crash and burn repeatedly, and one that will attract rather than repell well positioned insiders who are chary of risking themselves or their organizations online.
Are we in the giving conversation online ready for prime time? Is Phil Cubeta at Gifhtub? My answer: No. We have work to do to build a space, moderate it, and invite into it key people while being open to what we around here call Dumpster Dwellers, bright people without portfolio.
Posted by: phil | January 07, 2008 at 07:18 PM
Oh, and don't take that to mean that I think you're silly for asking the question. It's just that based on my experiences and beliefs I already have my answer. You may have a completely different conclusion, and I can understand that.
Posted by: dw | January 07, 2008 at 07:18 PM
I'm your basic pragmatist, Phil. Talking about how philanthropy should be discussed on the web is too large a question for me. It is discussed all over the web already, on sites more and less closed, among people with much experience and with none, in ways we might endorse or might not. We can't control the entire discussion of philanthropy everywhere.
So I think local standards apply. As the blog owner, you should manage the discussion here in the way you think best, and let other discussions take place with their own sets of standards. People will come here to experience your sort of discussion when that's what they'd like, as has been shown. You have built a community of people with whom you work well together and with whom you've made significant achievements, which is great. It's clearly a very strong network. But it's a smallish and tightly-knit one. You have a lot of shorthand and have evolved a rather elaborate culture. So it makes sense that when topical links lead strangers to your blog, they may understandably be puzzled.
If you wish to lead a wider discussion, you might include a clearer FAQ and signposts to assist people in understanding that something special is going on here. What happened here recently, instead, is that in the absence of such clear statements, newcomers looked around to try to understand what was going on, were unable to put the story together, and then found they were insulted for a presumed lack of education that would have allowed them to understand that. But it's not about education, it's about defining a space.
Some of your questions depend only on what you, as an individual blog owner, want to do. If you want to have a safe-space discussion among philanthropy insiders, where people can use masks to speak freely about their work without fear of reprisal, that might serve an important role and you could continue. If it would worry you that strangers who don't know what's what come by and get involved and screw everything up, you could try an invitation-only system where, once they've contacted you for an invite and set up an ID, they can blog away. Your readers won't know who they are. If you want to have a public, topical discussion in which more casual visitors can take part, then yes, you might want to implement some of the standards above.
The challenging part about this site, as I see it, is that you seem to be trying to do both - both a straightforward, topical site on issues and philanthropy, and a satirical playhouse in which sensitive truths can be aired. These goals, both worthy, seem to be working at cross purposes when current events drive new traffic to your site. Some might solve this by splitting the functions into two blogs, one the clearly marked land of the Tutor, and the other the topical site. But you may not want to do that. You might want to consider this entire event a complete aberration, and continue as before.
All I'm suggesting is that the atmosphere of the salon you're hosting should grow out of your aims(s)for the discussion(s). Maybe the limitations of the mask charade are preventing you from having some of the kinds of discussions you seem to really want to have.
Posted by: Michelle Moon | January 07, 2008 at 07:33 PM
Wow, this is actually getting very good. Phil, I hope you can turn off moderation soon as it helps the conversation flow. Not that it matters right now since my head is spinning with the possibilities raised at this moment, and I have other things like have dinner to do right now.
I don't think we are very far along the learning curve of building robust on-line communities. We have some good examples and data points and no effective way to integrate it all. Good data about anything is hard to come by. That's the irony of this whole dust up. Good metrics for a number of aspects of the field would be a godsend to everyone. You need it to evaluate one strategy vs. another, to get continuous improvement. Some things are well measured, other things that could be measured and that are important are not measured. Bad metrics, or ones that are gameable, that put a load on overworked non-profits, are worse than useless. They can do damage.
Posted by: Gerry | January 07, 2008 at 08:04 PM
Yes, the Internet is a wild and wooly place where "back-easterners" (as my Colorado hubby would call them) might indeed feel a tad uncomfy.
I am but a simple woman, thickskinned and battlescarred from my decade (so far) online. My advice is that your elite philanthropist buddies probably do need to stay behind their closed doors-because this brave new world is NOT safe.
Besides, I like the wisdom that says that when giving alms, the right hand should not know what the left hand is doing. (Much less anyone else!)
Posted by: konolia | January 07, 2008 at 08:35 PM
Michelle,
You win the MVP Award for this blogfest. That is about the most helpful advice I have ever had on the holding a space for the giving conversation. You get it, and you see my predicament. What comes to mind, sadly, is the Big House and the Hush Arbor (Or, Wealth Bondage and the Dumpster). Inside the Big House Uncle Tom is polite and helpful. In the Hush Arbor he tells the sometimes cautionary and sometimes subversive, and always cryptic tales of Uncle Remus. Uncle Tom is Uncle Remus. Can he play both roles in both places? Can he be transparent with his Master? Can I with my generous patron, Mistress Candidia? Can you with your donors, Board, and Executive Director?
Satire, masquerade, or carnival is one of "weapons of the weak." Cake Walk at the Big House!
You clearly see my points, very clearly, and so you can appreciate why this conversation is a kind of moebius strip where inside is outside and outside inside. We are hidden in plain sight. But speak a language that is intentionally parabolic.
Whether we in the Dumpster can host a Charity Ball, whether or not in Masquerade, I do not know. But we try.
Posted by: phil | January 07, 2008 at 08:49 PM
Konolia,
Thank you for this,
Besides, I like the wisdom that says that when giving alms, the right hand should not know what the left hand is doing. (Much less anyone else!)
Yes, do good in secret.
Posted by: phil | January 07, 2008 at 08:54 PM
But we in the conversation of giving have to pick up the pieces; we have to ask, what we have learned and how we can make an open and inclusive space for the giving conversation, one that will not crash and burn repeatedly, and one that will attract rather than repell well positioned insiders who are chary of risking themselves or their organizations online.
You seem to think that Gifthub/ Givewell/ et al. are 410 Rome and the rest of us are Visigoths. Nope. None of us would've known you exist, if you hadn't drawn attention to yourselves.
How does an online presence cause your "well-positioned insiders" to "risk[] themselves or their organizations"? I doubt the standard "giving conversation" requires holdenesque deception, so what's been lost?
Are you talking about the Happy Tutor and his Merry Band? Please explain how a "giving conversation" depends upon the narcissistic play-acting at one blog.
Also, this whole idea that you and "gerry" were Holden's (unasked-for and unrecognized) mentors: Don't you think "people" so devoted to evanescent personae are piss-poor advisors for someone trying to create a "transparent" organization?
Posted by: jmw | January 07, 2008 at 09:03 PM
jmw,
I think we have moved on past the emotions you express. Yes, we work in obscurity, yes I have lots to learn. No, I don't think you or the others from MeFi are Visigoths. We are trying at this point to come up with lessons learned. Do you have some you want to contribute that you think will advance the conversation of giving here or elsewhere?
If you will excuse me, I am trying to finish my Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. I assume I will be in the running after this blogfest is over.
Posted by: phil | January 07, 2008 at 09:17 PM
Phil: January 07, 2008 at 07:49 PM--How do you talk when you're at home?
Posted by: jmw | January 07, 2008 at 09:39 PM
Good point, I was just talking to myself, rehearsing, waiting for the phone call to come in from Stockholm.
Posted by: phil | January 07, 2008 at 09:57 PM
In following this whole situation across threads and across sites, I can't help noticing that Phil, Gerry and others associated with this close-knit circle of "elite philanthropists" are fearful of...something. I apologize for not being more knowledgeable about the world of philanthropy, but what is everyone so afraid of exactly?
I'm not so naive that I'm completely unaware of the egos involved at the highest levels of corporate boardrooms and higher education. I'm spent years in both contexts. But if these are really philanthropic endeavors where donors are assessing worthy charities and granting monies, not just moving money around between the personal interests of their acquaintances, why all of the obfuscation?
It's hard not to draw the conclusion, in the absence of clear talk about what is behind the fear, that something not quite right is going on here. I can't help wondering if Holden is/was useful to this group because of his willingness to bell the cat. Not because of any talent or special insight, just foolhardiness. A handy person to send into the fortress.
Is there really no one more experienced and incorruptible who would be willing to challenge whatever it is you seem to fear?
Posted by: jm | January 07, 2008 at 10:06 PM
Congratulations! I had no idea that the Nobel Foundation awarded a prize for (limited) forbearance of your personal annoyances.
You keep brandishing the phrase "conversation of giving" or "giving conversation" -- which means, what? Seriously, walk me through that conversation. Explain to me why online presence and/or transparency makes a difference.
Posted by: jmw | January 07, 2008 at 10:19 PM
One leaves for a bit and fuckall!
An admittedly hasty read of this and threads at Mefi provoke one observation: Holden's alleged misrepresentation and Phil's use of literary devices appear to stimulate equal degrees of aggression and rancor.
Phil, you started with one blog, which fissioned into two, which have moebiusly crossed and recrossed until we can't much tell whether it/they is/are one or two.
Your thoughts about the causes, reasons, perhaps necessities driving this dance would be welcome.
Posted by: matrullo | January 07, 2008 at 10:22 PM
Jm,
The field I am calling "giving" is very diverse and heterogeneous, as you can see by following the resource links and blog links on the sidebar. Most of what happens in elite philanthropy is largely private, behind closed doors. I am not and Gerry is not a part of those circles. There is also a whole new group of people who basically grew up online, the Gen Y people and others, who want to do things in the open. I am more or less in that group, though not of that generation. Professionally I do not work with elite philanthropy. I work with advisors to main street often blue collar wealth, The Millionaire Next Door. You could see a bit about that world at Advisors in Philanthropy or at InKnowVision. Most of that is about finance, moving money between generations, and philanthropy as a tax vehicle. My hope in starting Gifthub was to begin weaving some of the conversations and perspectives together.
Holden was from Wall Street, but you can't really see him as elite philanthropy. He is just getting started. He would be seen by established philanthropists and an inconoclast. He was famous briefly for that . I saw him as a Gen Y giver who might help create a more open space on line for giving
What is the fear factor? For one thing money is private. Most people who have it don't talk about it in public for fear of being reviled, or puffed, or solicited, or even kidnapped. They want confidentiality and discretion. So, online and offline stay apart. Also people who work with those who have huge fortunes are often a bit like courtiers, being careful to be diplomatic at all times. So again, you can see a clash with the brash and open online world.
Does this help? If you want to pursue it, try going to amazon and looking for books by James Hughes on Family Wealth.
Posted by: phil | January 07, 2008 at 10:30 PM
Tom, good to see you. Where have you been when we could have used a good defense of the Augustan Tradition around here? Now you want me to do it? Please, for the last week I have been doing little else. Poke around and you will see a lot of new people, new insights, and productive misunderstandings in the process being resolved, maybe.
Posted by: phil | January 07, 2008 at 10:39 PM
jmw,
The conversation of giving, or a conversation of giving, is what we are trying to do here. To get a variety of the people active in this field to see themselves as part of one field and communicate across it in a spirit of increasing purposefulness. Such active participants might include, small givers, large givers, financial, tax and legal professionals, nonprofit leaders, foundation staff, fund-raisers, think tank thinkers, policy experts and others whose work touches on the "third sector." (The first two being business and government.) Online presence makes a difference because it is, as you know one way to connect across time and distance. Transparency, well, we have been talking about that a lot here recently. Among the contrasting terms for transparency might be safe spaces for invited people only, "people of substance in every sense of that term," as I have heard it said.
Posted by: phil | January 07, 2008 at 10:40 PM
Clearly you've been quite busy, Phil. Misunderstandings wax and wane.
Wasn't thinking of your defending the Augustan mode. You do that anyway in the very way you write. I had in mind something else - quite literal, really. Just your account of how you see your specific, and rather unusual blog trajectory.
Not theory, then, just your take. But perhaps this isn't the time or occasion.
Posted by: matrullo | January 07, 2008 at 11:02 PM
I really appreciate the improved tone of the conversation. I lost a long comment about sympathy for what you all saw as the loss of a champion in Holden, but I think there are other places to look for the change you'd like to seek. What about finding project partners within the charity world - small, flexible places who are not hidebound by the traditions and connections of the large foundation world? Small museums have led the way in addressing some important concerns within my field, concerns which the large, moneyed instititutions covered with accretions of barnacles never could. Large organizations never will be leaders in this sort of fight; they're right in that they have too much to lose to a mistake. But in this quest for transparency, you need a few small workable models to serve as examples. The tiny charities. We Distribute Blankets to the Homeless. We Buy Eyeglasses for Poor Kids. Small, understandable, low-budget charities with only one service program and not much staff. By partnering with those sorts of organizations, lending interest, support, and perhaps even an introduction to resources to help with reporting and measuring, you might establish some models that, over time, will result in the Big Guys seeing that it's follow suit, or perish. The large organizations will go kicking and screaming into transparency, as they did into even things like establishing a web presence or modernizing business systems. As late as 1999, the large, leading museum I worked for still had employees with typewriters and no voice mail. The big guys have the least incentive toward creative change.
The distinction I want to make is that I think the failing of GiveWell was that the effort was coming from outside the field. Who is working on this problem using a project-based, finite model within the charitable world?
Posted by: Michelle Moon | January 07, 2008 at 11:09 PM
Tom, here is an attempt at context from a comment made at Metafilter in response to a similar question.
You could do as good at job as I at writing the Gifthub Perplex.
Posted by: phil | January 07, 2008 at 11:16 PM
Michelle,
I don't want to quite say we lost a champion. Holden is still working as you may have seen at Givewell, and was not really the champion per se, though the press latched onto him as such. He was new and got ahead of himself, but did reflect the digital native perspective, which I thought was promising. As for champion, I would instance Tracy Gary at Inspired Legacies or H. Peter Karoff at The Philanthropic Initiative. Neither of them, however, is a digital native. Your point about working against established structures to make the world of philanthropy open is of course exactly right. "Fools rush in...."
Better no doubt to start from the smaller lighter orgs with less inertia of rest. There are lots of giving spaces evolving online to bring donors and nonprofits together (like change.org). But that is not what you and I are talking about, I don't think. We are talking about trying to open up the flow of information and collaboration on a larger scale among the silos (nonprofits, foundations, donor networks, advisors).
In his Beyond Success, Randall Ottinger instances Michael Milken's prostate cancer work as an example. He actively convened stakeholders, apparently, and required them to collaborate and to publicize their findings as a condition of funding.
All I am doing is blogging away, organizing tiny little get togethers, doing work professionally with Main Street financial advisors, and volunteering. You see now how small potatoes this is. I make a poor proxy for elite philanthropy. My being a morals tutor to America's families is, I must admit, a rueful joke at my own expense.
Thank you, very much for your thoughtful comments. I hope we can continue to interact and maybe in some small way do some good.
Posted by: phil | January 07, 2008 at 11:29 PM
Phil, thank you for your comments thus far. I now understand more about your relationship (and Gerry's and HK's) to what you have called the elite philanthropists.
However, I am still not clear about what these groups of elite philanthropists fear. Are you saying that they fear the rest of the world knowing that they have money (to put it bluntly)? But that cannot be, because we already know that they have money. It is not impossible to research WHO the major players are and even estimate their approximate worth, is it?
Therefore, the fear of having their names associated with money is not valid. The fear of having others revile them for their wealth is valid, but that would be the case with or without the internet. The internet just makes these kinds of discussions (which DO happen in real life in some form or another) more visible. It doesn't invent them.
Is it that certain of these people don't like having their decisions questioned?
Posted by: jm | January 07, 2008 at 11:41 PM
Holden/Elie -- A Requiem.
Posted by: ericb | January 07, 2008 at 11:55 PM
I also hope so.
Posted by: Michelle Moon | January 08, 2008 at 12:09 AM
Greetings, Phil and everyone--
I’m neither a member of the philanthropic sector nor of the MetaFilter community (though I do lurk there often, a nonpaying voyeur). But I’ve stumbled across this whole contretemps, and been drawn in: I came for the trainwreck, and ended up learning a lot about trains.
As this seems to currently be the place where the larger issues are being most interestingly discussed, I’ve been drawn in here as well. I’ve been thinking my own thoughts, which might or might not intersect at some points with your concerns. I enter gingerly and, I hope, with respect. I want to engage with the discussion happening now, but I feel the need to backtrack just a bit.
I’d love to get away from the beaten-to-death specifics of this particular incident, but I want to raise something that I haven’t seen emphasized enough:
From the outside, the GiveWell/Clear Fund organization looks like a strange, hybrid creature. It’s hard--for me, at least--to determine what its main “product” is. I think for that reason, it might be difficult to extrapolate a more generalizable “lesson” from what happened. (And please correct me if I’ve got something wrong here.)
As far as I understand it, GiveWell was intended as a free, open informational resource for donors. In its public statements, it served as an advocate for the cause of greater transparency on all sides, and intended to set its own transparency as an example to the NPOs it evaluated. As a blog, it served as a place where the “culture of giving” could be discussed.
But, in addition to all that, it was itself a foundation. It solicited donations from the public at large to increase the amounts of its grants. At the GiveWell site, there’s a little box, and you can fill in an amount, click a button, and poof!--your dollars fly to them, to be disbursed at their discretion.
This is obvious, I suppose, but it’s a difference that makes a difference, and I think it needs to be restated at this point.
It’s funny--I went back and reread Holden’s original puppet show on MetaFilter, and I realized that it’s not actually clear what he was trying to accomplish.
Was he trying to publicize the free, open resource that is GiveWell--add some extra buzz to the publicity blitz that they experienced. Simply trying to drive up hit count? Or was he trolling for donations?
It certainly looked like the latter, given the timing and language of his post. And I think that makes a big difference to people “out there.”
Again, I want to put aside as much as anyone the endless rehash of the severity of Holden’s “crimes.” I just want to point out that, from where I’m standing, the GiveWell organization looks a lot like an outlier.
I see clearly that transparency is a “hot” issue, and an important one in the philanthropic sector. And Holden, in his enthusiastically clumsy way, seemed to be an important part of the conversation about this issue happening within the sector. He was perhaps a voice saying things that needed to be said. He certainly proposed himself as a radical, and in many ways, I’m sure he was. And that’s how the people “inside” saw him.
But for someone who met him for the first time on the MeFi thread, he was simply a salesman.
In the past week, I have, in my voyeuristic way, poked into quite a few “philanthropy insider” sites. I’ve found a wide variety of approaches, ideas, and rhetorical styles. I’ve learned a bit, and been productively confused enough that I hope to learn more.
But in sticking my head into all these places, I didn’t find anybody trying to sell me anything--not directly, not literally. I noticed that Phil here on GiftHub makes a point of noting all his services are are offered pro bono--the idea that no money is changing hands is seemingly important to the way this site functions, and the way it is seen.
This is rather crude and basic, but maybe it needs to be stressed before moving on to larger issues of interaction within and between Net communities, and openness of all sorts. This is fascinating stuff--I’d love to join in your discussion--that’s why I’m here. However, the particular path that got you from the GiveWell matter to these issues doesn’t really resonate with me.
Maybe that’s because I have a different idea of what it means say “the Net is such a dangerous place.” For me, misunderstandings, uncivil arguments, unkind words are unpleasant, and should be avoided, but they’re not really “dangers.”
For me, a “safe space” is one where I don’t have to guard my wallet.
Marketing is so omnipresent, online and off, that of course there’s going to be blowback against it. And it will often be angry, and might sound self-righteous, even if it’s right. (I get the feeling that this is the sentiment that Holden himself wanted to tap into with his calls for scientific rigor and accountability: what I’ve seen referred to as the “pissed-off donor model.” But that’s another conversation.)
So my point is a pretty simple one: there needs to be a difference between talking about money and asking for money. And as long as this difference remains unblurred, I don’t see what the philanthropic sector has to be worried about.
I have more thoughts I might like to add, that could more specifically connect with the issues brought up in this discussion, but for now, I’ll lob this into the ether and see how it goes.
Thanks for listening.
Posted by: Marcel | January 08, 2008 at 12:10 AM
For the most part, this conversation has been constructive. And I would posit that it's been constructive, because it has been moderated.
When there are a lot of participants, especially participants with divergent perspectives and discursive styles, it is essential to have a moderator. The moderator can be laissez-faire, until some one transgresses the ground rules, at which point it is his or her moral responsibility (to the individual and the group) to point to that transgression, explain it and request compliance. As firmly and frequently as necessary.
Anyone who has experienced New England Town meeting, knows why ground rules are imperative. Nothing can raise tempers like budget decisions about schools, police, parking and the town dump. People under this kind of pressure need to be kept safe from each other and themselves. Hobbes, would have agreed. So would Robert Frost ("fences make good neighbors").
That is not to say all public fora need to run by Robert's Rules, but if they aspire to be open and democratic, they need to insure a sense of safety or some people will go away. A feeling of safety does not entail stodginess or conventionality. It arises from trust in the fairness and predictability of the rules and their enforcement.
Over the past few days, both GH and MeFi moderators, have taken steps towards making their sites feel safer, by taking up their gavels and moderating. On both sites, moderators have reminded people of ground rules, requested compliance and shut down threads of discussion which seemed to be heading toward a train wreck. I applaud their efforts and encourage them to continue to moderate when and if the need arises.
Concerning the future of open source philanthropy, it's not dead, Phil. It's spider like. As Michelle pointed out, there are conversations about philanthropy all over the blog. There's no stopping them and no reason to try. We can know NPO's by using the information that's available to us all over the Web.
I'm opposed to the implementation of universal NPO evaluation metrics, because it smacks of further centralization of funding power and the homogenization of organizations and people.
I would like to see NPO's (continue to ) embrace transparency as a value and tool and take up the burden of proof for their worth. What precisely do I mean? If I dare be so fool-hearty, I propose NPO portfolio's (as borrowed from the world of teaching rather than investment).
The NPO portfolio could be something as simple as a page on a website, which linked to the organization's corporate documents (mission, strategic plan, objectives, milestones, evaluation tools, outcomes, budgets, financials, etc). It could also point to "soft data" like project profiles and reviews by donors, service recipients and peers. Peer reviews could become "harder" if reviewers were coached and the reviews gathered somewhat methodically. ( There are examples from other sectors, such as the "critical friends review" process developed by the Anneberg Institute at Brown University as part of the National School Reform Movement.)
Lastly, in my mind, an essentail part of the portfolio should be a link to an open discussion about the NPO's portfolio. I think that the organization and the public would learn best by talking through the various indicators (soft and hard).
Which brings me full circle to the question of this meta-discussion: the GiveWell crisis and the ensuing discussion crisis matters precisely because discussion ought to be one of the most powerful tools for the evaluation of NPO's. If we're going to include genuine open discussion (with ground rules and committed moderators) this experience is providing us with an important opportunity to figure out how to talk to people with shared interests but divergent, and sometimes very upsetting, opinions and discursive styles.
Posted by: Maureen Ward Doyle | January 08, 2008 at 12:18 AM
BTW -- regarding my stance as to GiveWell and their stated goal of examining and providing information/data on the effectiveness of non-profits I defer to folks who have the experience, knowledge and foundation for providing such this past decade. GiveWell, in my opinion, is nothing but a pretender, new to the scene. What do 26 y.o. hedge-fund employees bring to the table at this juncture?
This past weekend The New York Times covers the issue of "measurability" vis-a-vis non-profits: Can Foundations Take the Long View Again?
There has been significant focus on measurabilty/effectiveness of NPO's over the past decade. There is nothing new/revolutionary that GiveWell offers, as per their December P.R. push. Take for example the work of groups like The Bridgespan Group (affiliated with Bain & Company, Inc.) and New Profit, Inc. (affiliated with the Monitor Group). There is also the work done by Monitor Institute in collaboration with New Profit and Fast Company Magazine which has "created one of the most comprehensive and rigorous assessment processes for evaluating the performance of nonprofit organizations in the U.S.* They have used this evaluation process each year since 2004 in selecting The Fast Company/Monitor Group Social Capitalist Awards.
Why would one rely on the untested and amateur approach that GiveWell has exhibited in evaluating the performance of any non-profit? I'd go with the pros who've spent time in the sector and established their reputation over the past decade.
posted by ericb
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>BTW -- regarding my stance as to GiveWell and their stated goal of examining and providing information/data on the effectiveness of non-profits I defer to folks who have the experience, knowledge and foundation of providing such this past decade. GiveWell, in my opinion, is nothing but a "pretender," new to the scene. What do 26 y.o. hedge-fund employees bring to the table at this juncture?
This past weekend The New York Times covers the issue of "measurability" vis-a-vis non-profits: Can Foundations Take the Long View Again?
There has been significant focus on such over the past decade. There is nothing "new/revolutionary" that GiveWell can offer as per their December P.R. push. Take for example the work of groups like The Bridgespan Group (affiliated with Bain & Company, Inc.) and New Profit, Inc. (affiliated with the Monitor Group). There is also the work done by Monitor Institute in collaboration with New Profit and Fast Company Magazine which has "created one of the most comprehensive and rigorous assessment processes for evaluating the performance of nonprofit organizations in the U.S."* They have used this evaluation process each year since 2004 in selecting The Fast Company/Monitor Group Social Capitalist Awards.
Why would one rely on the untested and amateur approach that GiveWell has exhibited in evaluating the performance of any non-profit? I'd go with the pros who've spent time in the sector and established their reputations over the past decade.
Posted by: ericb | January 08, 2008 at 01:01 AM
Having followed this entire saga, and as someone with experience working and thinking about other forms of "open source" models for improving existing systems, I was struck by how uncharitable Holden seems, both in his tone and in his approach to evaluating charities. This alone gave me pause, regardless of his ethical transgressions. His claim to paving the way for open-source philanthropy rings hollow when the very methology - the world-view he uses to frame the analysis - is the source of many of the ills that philanthropy seeks to remedy. I can't remember where I read it, but someone used the phrase "The No Charity Left Behind" approach to philanthropy, and I think that pretty much nails it. I have worked in many different fields - from public education to for-profit software companies to the legal world - and Holden's hubris - his youthful insistence that the model of success he learned in the hedge fund industry can and should apply everywhere else. I recall a teacher I worked with at a school in South Africa who insisted that because he was qualified to teach English he could easily teach any other subject without any further training simply by reading a textbook and the accompanying lesson plans. The man was a fool. It is sad that Holden was viewed by many in the philanthropic world as someone capable of shaking things up rather than as an arrogant bully capable of traumatizing the very groups he seeks to "optimize", and is perhaps a commentary on the dynamic of fear and obsequiousness that exists between donors and donees.
Posted by: peter | January 08, 2008 at 04:41 AM
re: "My concern is that the dustup here will lead people to feel that blogging is a dangerous thing."
This seems to be a curious concern, or at least one that assumes that the world of philanthropy is so ignorant of the basics of the online world that we would need to start at a far lower level than this.
Nothing bad came of Holden Karnofsky having a blog. The bad came from his use of multiple accounts and failure to identify his interest when promoting GiveWell and denigrating its rivals in the marketplace, in the belief that what in the good old days we called shilling would not be identifiable on the Web.
That is, he was clearly not a digital native, because he did not understand the terrain of the digital world. As such, is it not a good thing that a space is now open for somebody with more convincing claims to be a digital native to provide that perspective?
Posted by: Dan | January 08, 2008 at 07:17 AM
bambi: boo!
godzilla: i'm a pragmatist (incinerates her.)
bambi: better!
Posted by: bambi's makeover | January 08, 2008 at 07:40 AM
bambi: i'm hooked. help me quit.
godzilla: you quit when you started. (incinerates her.)
godzilla2: keep going. it comes out just the same.
Posted by: bambi's rehab | January 08, 2008 at 07:42 AM
a sinkhole near a lake
Posted by: bambi's angels abandon | January 08, 2008 at 07:43 AM
Marcel, you have made my day a lot lighter. I entered this morning braced for more vitriol and misunderstanding. Your comment gave reminds me of why I love blogging. You wrote,
"I came for the trainwreck, and ended up learning a lot about trains." I think your points are very well taken. Holden is a newbie and an outlier. He was in business and is a self-promoter. (Aren't most of us, when engaged in a startup?). He also over-stepped the bounds at MeFi, went way over. As a digital native he was incredulous that nonprofit people don't share their insights and research more often, and online. He was right about that.
You are correct that the dustup over Holden's failings obscures the larger issues. One of them is the best business or nonprofit model for sustaining this "sharing of information" that we are trying to call open source philanthropy. The day before this Holden Flap hit, he was emailing me about his business model. How, he was wondering, could be give away all his findings on the net and still have revenue to pay for salaries and overhead? He does or did have funders who believe in him and they were going to give for overhead, I believe. Then, as I understand it, he would give away his findings for free on the net, and would be a conduit for gifts via that box you mention on his site. He, I believe, did not plan to extract a "load" from those gifts. I told him he might want to consider things like speeches, articles, and training materials as ways to earn revenue. I also mentioned that some wealthy people do hire consultants to do custom research as at The Philanthropic Initiative. Also, some consultants, like Tracy Gary at Inspired Legacies will give away their donor consultations and then ask for a gift. "Pay it forward." How do we fund a learning community or commons? Maybe that is the general question. So far no really powerful answers have come to the fore. This is all still catch as catch can. My business model is a) have a normal corporate job b) give away whatever I can on the net and by email and voluteering to kindred spirits. That is called, I think, citizenship.
Marcel, please do return and leave more comments, if you can. You have driven the conversation right to the core of many of the issues obscured by the smoke and flame of the train wreck. Thank you!
Posted by: phil | January 08, 2008 at 08:49 AM
Maureen,
I will have to remember your phrasing, "Portfolio as in teaching," as in a student's compendium of writing. That is how metrics work best for me, a set of well crafted documents that present a full multi-dimensional sense of who the org is, what they do, who gives and why, who manages it, how they are governed, who is on the board, what their vision, mission, and strategies are, and what results they can point to, also with whom do they collaborate and how.
I agree that the open source approach is not dead, but there are some who will use this as an excuse to do what they would prefer to do anyway, continue with business as usual and sniff, "Those net people are mostly barbarians, very little signal, lots of noise, and so many insults. We should not subject our Executive Director to such potential abuse."
Posted by: phil | January 08, 2008 at 08:54 AM
Dan,
Your comments are correct within the field of focus you bring to them. The point I was making is that the biggest players in giving are in theiir 50-70's. They are often not on the net, except via a webmaster or through email. They are busy. They have little time to blog. They don't know in some cases how to make a hyperlink. They want to spend their time among the "summits," working with peers at a high level, often in closed rooms, and letting the rest be handled by subordinates, advisors, pr people, etc. They may look at this noisy scene and say. "Well, closed door policy makes best sense for us; we don't have time for 4-6 hours a day in the pillory." What they will actually say, may sound a little like this, "No good deed goes unpunished." Rather than risk a good reputation, and a good night's sleep, by venturing into the vociferious misunderstandings we have seen here, why not go quietly back to work with insiders. Besides, Cheney is on line one.
Posted by: phil | January 08, 2008 at 09:00 AM
erich,
I think you have to be careful not to be overly influenced by the pr about Holden. You are quite right, he was and is a beginner. He has brains and energy and actually has a mind that is more open than most. But he is very much at the beginning of a mountainous learning curve, maybe in year one of five before he looks back and says, "Could I ever have been so bold and so half-informed?" But isn't that how we all start out in our avocations and professions? I am a teacher by training and aptitude, as you may tell by my incessant commenting on comments. I took Holden in that spirit. "Let's learn from each other, keep one informed, and keep talking as we go along." He had much to offer, much to learn, and made some nearly fatal errors.
Meanwhile the project, open source philanthropy, continues.
Posted by: phil | January 08, 2008 at 09:05 AM
Let me put it this way. I was glad to see the online conversation about philanthropy breaking into the print media. I gave Holden personal credit for having the brass to make that happen. I also give Sean Stannard Stockton at Tactical Philanthropy lots of credit for parlaying his blog into a column for The Financial Times. I would be very happy to see Lucy Bernholz, or Albert Ruesga, or Michelle Moon, say, on the front page of the Chronicle next time. Or for them to serve as columnists in a paper of record. But we build on what we can and try to keep moving forward. The work is important, not just for us but for the sector and for society. America is more than a Market. Liberty is more than economic freedoms. Whoever believes in giving and an open society and is closest to the basket should take the shot, and the rest of us keep moving the ball to the open shooter. We can do more than express our frustrations and take it out on one another. We can come together in loose federations to bring democracy back into vogue, right here in America.
Posted by: phil | January 08, 2008 at 09:11 AM
The NPO portfolio could be something as simple as a page on a website, which linked to the organization's corporate documents (mission, strategic plan, objectives, milestones, evaluation tools, outcomes, budgets, financials, etc). It could also point to "soft data" like project profiles and reviews by donors, service recipients and peers. Peer reviews could become "harder" if reviewers were coached and the reviews gathered somewhat methodically.
I think this is an excellent idea. In some subsectors, peer review data already exists; museums, for instance, can apply for accreditation through AAM. The accreditation process is rigorous and documentation-heavy, generating plenty of useful data.
Posted by: Michelle Moon | January 08, 2008 at 09:38 AM
Marketing is so omnipresent, online and off, that of course there’s going to be blowback against it
Marcel, see references such as E. Fromm, "Escape From Freedom". The rise of the marketing personality as the door-to-door representative for free market freedom and democracy has been a long time coming. And as you aptly note, it's now the air that we breathe.
Oh, and as Phil said ... thanks for going right to the heart of the matter.
Blogging does indeed have its moments. Nothing quite like it, I say ... let a thousand Saul Alinskys (virtually) bloom.
Posted by: JJ Commoner | January 08, 2008 at 10:13 AM
Phil, excellent advice in your 7:49 comment (but you probably already knew that!) It's a good example of the potential for positive feedback loops in inter-generational interaction. Far too often I hear enthusiastic pitches from sincere start-up founders where the revenue-generating model automatically defaults to google ads, with no idea of either GA's limitations or other possibilities.
Also, love the train metaphors. You and Marcel have made me feel a lot less guilty for spending so much time watching the model railroad at my hotel!
Posted by: Jeff Trexler | January 08, 2008 at 10:27 AM
Those are good models at least for exploring how one might fund a philanthropic enterprise - it's quite market-driven, ultimately, but an enterprise that intermediates between donor and charity, selecting the most effective donation recipient in exchange for cash, probably needs to justify its existence quite hard. In marketing terms, it would be easier to sell speeches, lecture tours, training exercises and the like, made desirable by the reputation of the organisation, rather than to sell taking a cut of every donation.
How does one, then, raise the profile of the organisation to the point where enough people want to hear more, and are prepared to pay to do so? This touches again on the question of whether or not Holden Karnofsky is a digital native. As you say, Phil, he did a very good job of getting the sector into the newspapers - although was that moving the online discussion into the inkies, or just going straight to the inkies, through a PR push? - and he is no doubt more web-savvy than some - I can't imagine my Chief Executive spending his time dissing rival businesses on blogs, although admittedly I also don't think this would be considered a useful apportioning of his time.
However, HK came across as something more like a digital tourist, an Executive Director Gone Wild - as we saw here on GiftHub, the presumption of anonymity is an enabler, but not necessarily a wholly trustworthy one.
So, since I don't think any of us are suggesting that it would be better for people who are found to be acting in defiance of their corporate ethics to be allowed to continue to operate in the positions and the manner to which they have grown accustomed, what does one do? The easiest answer seems to be to find somebody who actually does understand the web, in theory and practice, and who has a working grasp of philanthropy, and then assign the uplands of the Internet to their oversight. GiveWell may simply be a case of a start-up not having the capital to hire a subject specialist.
I understand and sympathise with the idea that executives being caught behaving badly might prejudice other executives about the medium by which they were both enabled and exposed. However, these big players will hopefully come to understand the value of the Internet to philanthropy, or maybe the risk/benefit ratio of ignoring it, and the value of having it dealt with by a competent agent.
Enron did not lead to the decommissioning of accountancy, nor Exxon Valdez the end of shipping. I certainly understand the concerns that naturally cautious investors or players may have of such a "flash audit" happening to them, but compared to Sarbanes-Oxley or simiar, is it that bad? S&P can probably report that all one has to do to avoid repercussions is not to do things one would not do in a telephone call or symposium.
Posted by: Dan | January 08, 2008 at 11:26 AM
I fear many in this debate may be inadvertently contributing to the tainting of open source movements in philanthropy. Open source philanthropy, if we're to be true to the term opensource, is about donors participating in the philanthropic direction and effect of their donations. Crowd DIY.
Transparency Tyranny (ref: http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/transparency.htm ) on the other hand is about Generation Y wanting more openness and information about where their dollars are going. GiveWell has absolutely nothing to do with opensource philanthropy – so it’s strange to see the age-old debate about transparency in the traditional philanthropic sector come to dominate this thread, when Phil’s post is about opensource philanthropy.
The use of ‘open’ in ‘opensource’ means open as in writeable (the user is Active), not open as in readable (the user is Observant). Transparency is implicit in opensource movements – it will be an inherent feature of any opensource philanthropy initiative that gets setup, since in a DIY environment, the crowd knows, by definition, what it’s doing!
I suggest we clarify the lexicon before terms get tainted unnecessarily - perhaps transparency tyranny of the type promoted by GiveWell is a bad thing (it isn't, to answer the general thread within these comments), but it does not follow that opensource philanthropy is also bad (to answer your original post).
The traditional philanthropic world, for now, is better off resolving this longstanding debate about just how open it wants to be, top down, and just how it's going to live in an era of increased SOUSveillance from initiatives like GiveWell (and others) - because it's coming, GiveWell or not, and the media attention just proves that there’s a public demand for it.
The media attention was NOT, however, a product of Holden's skill with PR and the media (as some here seem to believe); he has no appreciation of PR, else he would have realised how important reputation is to companies in the nonprofit sector, or else he wouldn't have risked it by doing something so stupid! What a n00b, as net natives would say!
Given the fascinating points made about transparency tyranny in the comments, perhaps a sensible course of action would be to rephrase your original post (replace opensource philanthropy with transparency tyranny) and start a new discussion, elsewhere, about the role of transparency in opensource philanthropy, and how to shape and design OSP so that it can be resilient against abuse and marketing by fraud (as we saw here)
Posted by: Philippe Bradley | January 08, 2008 at 05:05 PM
I have to really think about and aborb the points you are making, Philippe. You are right we are conflating quite different subjects:
1. Transparency - no secrets
2. Masquerade
3. Fraud
5. Tact, diplomacy, privacy, confidentiality
6. Open source commons and co-ownership
7. Sharing of ideas among stakeholders
8. Two way and many to many communication versus top down and carefully controlled ("Branding, Marketing, Spin, PR")
The generational differences are as staggering as were those between the Boomers and the WWII generation. We are about to see a melt down, based on your remarks.
May I ask you, Philippe, in your assessment of the recent "transparency push" we experienced here and at MeFi, do you see this as generational per se, or is it two cultures, net culture versus established culture of hierarchy? In other words, would you agree that some Boomers are themselves very much in the Gen Y camp when it comes to wanting two way and many forms of discourse, with the big players humble enough to join us as peers? I know that is important to me, and to others I know of my Boomer cohort on line. It was central to the Boomers who wrote Cluetrain.
Finally! Finally we are seeing the ClueTrain logic work its way out of the marketing sector into the civic sector. About time. For me this has been a dream for almost 10 years, to shift the conversation from "how to do better marketing," to how to create a better world through a more empowered citizen sector.
The pain experienced here in the last few days of kerfuffle are nothing. We all learned; atleast I did. How much better that is than are the secret meetings in safe places recycling the same worn out ideas among elites who rule from above like princelings, as they call them in Red/Capitalist China.
Posted by: phil | January 08, 2008 at 05:41 PM
I think you're absolutely right that there are plenty of boomers who have developed a very good understanding of the increasing tendency to engage you donor/client base and community - and who also profit from it. I'm sure that as an advisor, you benefit from the collective wisdom of the comment-givers on your blog.
It's a big resource! And it could be a fantastic one for nonprofit directors, I'd imagine, given the importance for most nonprofits of engaging people, gathering support and understanding the community in which you're trying to have an impact.
In my mind, the most surprising thing is that the private sector - CEOs, management consultancies, etc - have led the way here, as I'm not sure that crowdsourcing (mining the wisdom and of the crowd, by engaging them) is as important to them as it is for NPOs. You can do more than just get feedback and ideas - you can make them your ambassadors. The most efficient crowdmining goes so far as to make the crowd both your eyes and ears (sensory systems) and your limbs (make these people work for you - for FREE!). This is starting to be 'opensource philanthropy' territory (though the traditional organisation is still a nucleus here - true opensource movements are peer-to-peer and more decentralised)
Then again, my experience of either sector (private, nonprofit) amounts to the square root of nothing, so take my advice with a pinch of salt.
--------
Having said that, I think there IS something specific to my generation (I'd imagine every generation above me has said that!). It's one thing to have the digital era (the atoms to bits transition, when the objects we manipulate each day are virtual not physical, and can be copied, passed to all your friends, and easily reached sitting at your desk as you do your homework, or through your mobile, or even your interactive TV).
We have information about more of our environment 'on demand' than any generation before us - and we've been brought up that way, so we don't know any different. So it seems totally weird to us that when we reach out for information about an object or a corporation - or an NPO! - and we can't find it. NPOs have to open up, or we're going to get 'weirded out' and at best ignore it completely - at worst, we won't trust it; do NPOs have a more valuable asset than trust, asides from their staff and cumulative experience?
That's IF we hear about that NPO in the first place. NPOs have to build presences in new media channels, as otherwise we won't come across them. What may be the normal source of new donors and exposure for an NPO this decade could get completely abandoned once the boomers 'check out'.
-----------
At the end of the day, it's not particularly important to nonprofits to know the difference. The fact is that more and more donors and potential donors are going to start imposing transparency demands on nonprofits, and expecting to engage with them. Time to be proactive! This isn't (yet) a gun pointing at them, it's a great opportunity to leverage people's interest and capitalise on it.
But we, as the people who are going to be engaging them on their blogs, have to be wary about naive attempts to manipulate us - as Holden did. It's a learning process for both the future panelists, and the future engaged audience.
Posted by: Philippe Bradley | January 08, 2008 at 06:49 PM
Thanks Philippe. It does seem odd that the NPO sector doesn't lead more in these ways. There is a lot to be done in building infrastructure, that could be done for the investment of very modest resources if Open Source models are used. Similarly, I think it is odd that university research departments do not adopt open ways of working. Matrulo is critical of JSTOR for not having open access policies, which is bad for us free range intellectuals hanging 'round the dumpster. Stallman created the GPL because he saw that his friends at other universities were no longer freely sharing their code.
You are right that transparency and open source are two different things, but they are deeply connected. For example, transparency of digital election systems (both for voting and support functions) could be guaranteed by an open source requirement on all software on the machines (probably not sufficient, but necessary).
Posted by: Gerry | January 08, 2008 at 07:06 PM
I also want to write in defense of privacy. I read a number of strong statements against the use of masks and anonymity, and I completely disagree. In order for the requirements of transparency not be become a tyranny, we need to be clear on what is and is not necessary for transparency to function. Those who hold the information on all of us and do not tell will not respect any Constitutional bounds. Privacy is our right as citizens, but when we take a leadership roles, we also must agree to sufficient transparency for the requirements of the role. In a time not long past, that didn't include the presidents sex life, but now it does. And just where our Civil Society desperately needs transparency it is sorely lacking.
Posted by: Gerry | January 08, 2008 at 07:13 PM
Transparency and privacy are two very different things. I don't care about the prime minister's sex life (Gordon, shagging someone? what a horrific concept!) but I do care about how he conducts his business, and I have a right to know. I don't have a right to know about his sex life, and have no reasonable, rational self-interest in the matter, but I do however need to know that my taxes are being well spent.
Professional transparency (where reasonable), but private opacity (again, where reasonable).
NPOs have no excuse, really, for opacity in the way they go about their work, as they don't really have 'competitors' that would take advantage of that information. That transparency shouldn't, however, come at the expense of donors or recipients of aid that wish to remain anonymous. I speak only of transparency in the day-to-day workings of the organisation.
As for masks and anonymity online: Ultimately, you have a right to anonymity only when others don't need to ascertain your reputation and authority in order to decide whether to believe a statement you have made (that isn't backed up by some other reputable source)
Alternatively, people should stop listening to single sources of data about something, and instead aggregate it so that the Wisdom of the Crowd emerges. Then, you will tend to have a much more reliable estimate about what to think about something (GiveWell or otherwise) than if you had asked a single person (masked or otherwise!). See the work of James Surowiecki for more.
You're doubly the fool if you rely on just one opinion, AND from an anonymous source which doesn't let you establish that source's authority and reliability on the subject. Durh!!
Ideally, of course, everyone would always be honest and would be perfectly clear about just how much they know about the subject and how they are qualified to give advice on it. Then even if you got just one opinion, and even if it were from a masked individual, you would know where things stand on the subject. I guess we're shit out of luck!
Another point is that on the Internet, you come across so many different people each day that even if they announced their real name, you wouldn't know them anyhow, and would have no idea as to their reputation, authority and expertise. So even without masks, there's a kind of inherent anonymity to it all.
That veil can be quickly lifted, however, with a quick Google of the name, if needs be. So far as I can keep truly private details about myself under my control (i.e. private to most people!), I am starting to believe that generally, people should be less reticent to identify themselves, either with their real name or with a conserved pseudonym that the confused conversant can use to crosscheck against other facets of the writer's online identity to put the writer's statements into context.
So as soon as you assume any role of authority, you lose the right to anonymity.
(in a liberal nation, this is, certainly a Chinese citizen would disagree, where one can endanger one's safety and liberty by making a statement, no matter how reputable and autoritative one is on the subject - i.e. how true it is likely to be)
Posted by: Philippe Bradley | January 08, 2008 at 08:19 PM
Philippe wrote,
We have information about more of our environment 'on demand' than any generation before us - and we've been brought up that way, so we don't know any different. So it seems totally weird to us that when we reach out for information about an object or a corporation - or an NPO! - and we can't find it. NPOs have to open up, or we're going to get 'weirded out' and at best ignore it completely - at worst, we won't trust it; do NPOs have a more valuable asset than trust, asides from their staff and cumulative experience?
I hope some nonprofit leaders do read and weigh your words. Your speaking from within a megatrend that will remake our existing institutions. You are also right, no doubt, to expect what we boomers used to call "co-optation," a bone thrown in your direction without real substance.
Posted by: phil | January 08, 2008 at 08:32 PM
I agree that they are different, but I don't think this distinction is made very clearly by those who call for "no more masks".
I don't want to drill down too deeply, but a quick gloss here might help. The "auth" words, authenticity, authorization, author, etc. are all founded on identity, but they do not necessarily rest directly on a real person. That person's identity is not identical to "who they are", but is rather a public face on that. We know there must be an author function who actually writes the words, but as any artist knows, these characters can take on a life of their own and even invade our real world.
Posted by: Gerry | January 09, 2008 at 05:01 AM
I agree that they are different, but I don't think this distinction is made very clearly by those who call for "no more masks".
Part of that, I think, is that there are a lot of different people with differing opinions on what "no more masks" means, exactly. Any one of them could probably be very clear on how they make that distinction, but taken as a group...
I've made the argument that there's a very practical distinction between legal/technical anonymity -- creating a technical barrier between one's legal identity and one's words to avoid punishment for speech -- and persona play -- creating a rhetorical barrier between your identity and the voice you choose to speak in.
For me, that's exactly the fence between pragmatic anonymity and masks. Other people would shift the fence a bit, or perhaps just not see that fence as the most important one on the landscape, and so the aggregate border in a conversation like this is going to be fuzzy.
I love Andy Kaufman to death but I wouldn't want him as a press secretary.
Posted by: Josh Millard | January 09, 2008 at 11:52 AM
I love Andy Kaufman to death but I wouldn't want him as a press secretary.
Why not? Presumably people can make the distinction between when a performer is "in character" and acting as a citizen in another role that calls for a different voice. Swift was both a satirist and a minister as I understand.
Posted by: Gerry | January 09, 2008 at 12:27 PM
Why not? Presumably people can make the distinction between when a performer is "in character" and acting as a citizen in another role that calls for a different voice.
I'm not sure I've ever met two people who agree on exactly when Andy was or was not in character. As far as I can tell, he was, by intention, the perfect cypher.
But let's presume that we can expect the average person to be able to make that distinction with some percentage of success. Where's the threshold -- what' the minimum acceptable percentage of success -- at which an organization's endorsement (and therefore its requirement that its partners and customers and general critics must parse) that kind of mask play becomes a net benefit compared to going with someone straightforward and consistent?
I don't mean this as a condemnation of mask play or Serio Ludere, I want to be (and hope I have been) clear on that: but as a mode of discourse it comes with such a cost, such discursive overhead and potential for misinterpratation, that I can only really see it as irresponsible as a way of dealing fairly and efficiently with general communication.
Posted by: Josh Millard | January 09, 2008 at 02:02 PM
I presume this is because Andy chose to be a cypher, but my comment assumes someone interested in the role in question, not interested only in the performance.
Posted by: Gerry | January 09, 2008 at 02:14 PM
Josh,
Yes, of course it is irresponsible, since it reframes authority and responsibility with an eye to turning the world upside down. It is deeply subversive, but so light you can't hardly pass a law against it. The Catholic church handled the peasants who were wanted the wild old pagan festivals like Lupercal by making them Feast Days, like the Feast of Fools held on the day of the Circumcision of Jesus. The festival was led by a little boy - the boy Bishop - who was clearly mocking church authority. That Feast of Fools took hundreds of years to stamp out. The humorless did send Oscar Wilde eventually to Reading Goal, but not before he had written the immortal "The Imnportance of Being Earnest." Not all messages are for all ears. And not all ritual is for every ocassion. First Carnival, then Lent.
By the way, who brought satire upon the dunces into the Christian tradition? Some devil, no, a monk named Erasmus. Go figure.
Posted by: phil | January 09, 2008 at 03:17 PM