From the Director: Nov 2011

Dear friends,

Building trust through philanthropy?  Yes, we can! We can impact social change thanks to philanthropy, but that takes common goals and a vision for change.  We use language such as collective impact, collaboration or shared value to leverage this concept.  In fact, philanthropy might have more promise to build trust and impact social change than government or corporations today.

When examining the existing or emerging models of philanthropy, they all require some underpinning of trust—complex global philanthropy needs transparency to be most effective or foundations leveraging strategic gifts require metrics and evaluation.  After reviewing my list of trends in philanthropy, they all require some variation of mutual agreement and trust:  microfinance, funder collaboration, impact investing, venture philanthropy, public-private partnerships, hybrid profit/nonprofit organizations, globalization, corporate social responsibility and strategic philanthropy.

With the blurring of the lines between the public, private and civil society, the sources of revenue and organizational model create even more complexity.  Are your gifts aligned with your philanthropic mission?  Is your generosity being used to reflect your intent?  These are all questions we ask at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy daily.  We explore these issues in our graduate student workshop, classes and through faculty, scholar and student research. Please enjoy new photos of our graduate workshop and PhD fellows!

As an organization dedicated to knowledge creation, knowledge sharing and community building, we have an important opportunity for you to hear some of the most current thinking, research and trends.

Please join us on Thursday, November 17th, Doors Open 5:00pm. Program 5:30pm-6:30pm Encina Hall, Bechtel Conference Center.  Join thought leaders and innovators from the field of philanthropy.  Steven McCormick, president of The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, former president of The Nature Conservancy, will be interviewed by Alexa Culwell, visiting practitioner with Stanford PACS and past CEO of The Helen and Charles Schwab Foundation and the Larry Stupski Foundation. They will explore the issues facing “Philanthropy in the 21st Century.” Our event co-host is the Woods Institute for the Environment. RSVP here.

If you would like to delve even deeper into the discussion of new models of impact investing, please check your mailbox or inbox for the latest Stanford Social Innovation Review which includes five articles related to social investing including "The Rise of Social Capital Market Intermediaries" by Bill Meehan, Lecturer at Stanford Business School, "Giving 2.0: Getting Together to Give"  by Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, Lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, and "Roundtable on Impact Investing"  led by Johanna Mair, Academic Editor and Visiting Scholar.

Looking ahead to the Winter Quarter, Stanford PACS will be hosting a series of monthly scholarly workshops, in addition to scholar-practitioner charrettes under the leadership of Rob Reich, Stanford PACS Faculty Co-Director and Lucy Bernholz, PhD and Stanford PACS Visiting Scholar. They will be exploring topics such as Form, Function, Funding of Social Economy and Digital Public Goods as part of their Philanthropy, Policy and Technology research project exploring the promise and peril of new social economy of the 21st Century.  This is part of a two year Stanford PACS signature research project.

On November 4th with over 400 guests present we launched our first conversation on intergenerational feminism with the Michele Clayman Institute for Gender Studies and theCenter for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law: Social Entrepreneur Program.  East Asian Studies joined us with Wendi Murdoch-Producer, Wayne Wang-Director and Amy Tan, Author for a special screening and discussion of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, to explore the rigid cultural norms imposed on women in 19th century China and how those issues are affecting society in China today.  Looking ahead we will be co-hosting another discussion on intergenerational feminism on January 26th with Clayman Institute, CDDRL and Stanford Law School featuring Ms. Gloria Steinem and a group of Stanford faculty!  More details soon!

And thanks to the broader Stanford community!  On Thursday, October 27th we hosted 550 guests to learn more about the extraordinary generosity of Americans when Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, Stanford PACS founder and Advisory Board chair, and author of the new book Giving 2.0: Transform Your Giving and Our World spoke. We were honored to host Jim Canales, President of The James Irvine Foundation and Stanford Trustee, who made the special introduction.  Thanks to our twenty co-hosts for making this such a success and let me share the news that Giving 2.0  has reached #5 on the New York Times best seller list.  Very exciting for Stanford PACS to host the Silicon Valley and Stanford event!

In closing, every day I have the joy of meeting with faculty, student and leaders from philanthropy, business and government.  Our center is growing and having impact! Thank you for the opportunity to serve all of you!