Dam Busting to Get a Flood of Giving Now

Issues to be resolved to "bust the dam" holding back a wave of current gifts and grants.

• Organizations like Philanthropedia  connecting ordinary donors with advice from experts on which nonprofits are doing great work in various categories.
• Organizations like Tactical Philanthropy who can get advisors paid for giving good advice about giving for impact in the context of family wealth.
• Organizations like my employer educating advisors and fundraisers to work more productively with donors and "proto-philanthropistis."
• Organizations like The Grantmaking School to train not only traditional paid staff of foundations, but also families with a foundation, and families who are thinking about starting one.
• Celebrity or "Maven" branded area of interest gift funds (The Nelson Mandela Social Justice Fund, The Tracy Gary Women's Fund, The Oprah Winfrey Givers Club, The Bill Sommerville Grassroots Fund, The Paul Brest Smart Money Fund, The Sarah Palin Family Values Fund, The Rick Warren Power of Purpose Fund, The T.D. Jakes Seed Fund, etc.)

Anyone who can connect these points will a) do well b) do really good. Community Foundations and commercial gifts funds will have to ask, "Is such a dam busting project a potentially dominant competitor, or it is a potentially wonderful collaborator?" By the dam, I mean the current model of holding money in a reservoir (donor advised funds) to collect basis points to support the sponsoring organization, rather than moving money in a great river to cultivate the hearts, minds, bodies and souls of our dessicated time. The business model to support such a river is what is missing, but when found will bust the dam, releasing a flood in good gifts and grants. Yet is that good or bad news to those good hearted and smart people whose business model is to hold the money to collect the basis points? I am not speaking against good business models, only looking for one that is well aligned with current gifts supported by experts in finance, family, philanthropy and social impact in a specific issue area.

Comments

[twitter.com/ddenizen]

Maybe we need better giving models rather than better business models.

[Deyan]

Thanks Phil, this is a very good blog post. I would potentially add organizations such as GreatNonprofits (http://greatnonprofits.org/) that are educating the larger community as well and that we at Philanthropedia have a close partnership with.

@ddenizen - business models are important so we can further expand the offering, educate and get more donors involved, and have a bigger impact. That being said, I agree with you that we need to help donors give "smarter" - which is a central part of our mission at Philanthropedia.

Thanks again Phil!

[twitter.com/ddenizen]

I'm not talking about giving smarter or any other b-school inspired metric. I'm talking about giving, compassion, heart.

It doesn't change the need for fiscal viability, it changes the game in another more important way.

[pcubeta@sbcglobal,net]

The cultures in conversation here include biz school, grassroots giving, open source, open space, wikipedia-style self organizing commons, private banking, grantmaking, and nonprofits inside forprofits (Fidelity Charitable, Schwab Charitable) Cultural fusion. Yet, also, the underlying issue - how do we make a living doing good things for the commons, the community, the organizations that we love? What models support a river of resources flowing where the most good is being done, rather than bottled up in resevoirs. Is philanthropic work something we can only do when we already have money enough to live on from some other source?