20 Years After 9/11: Commemorating History and Building for the Future
This month, as we mark 20 years since the attacks of 9/11, I’ll join New Yorkers and people from around the world in listening to the reading of the names at the World Trade Center. The ceremony helps fulfill our obligation to honor the lives of those who were killed...
Power Sharing and Equity
Are you listening? How? And to whom? I share these questions as ones I’ve asked myself as both a philanthropist and an artist. I share these questions as the spark that I believe can ignite a shift in philanthropy that will transform our approaches and our impact. This month, I...
How to be a Democracy Funder
Democracy is under severe threat in the United States and around the world, but figuring out how to use your financial resources to protect and sustain American democracy is no easy feat. For one thing, the decline of democracy is an incredibly complex challenge with a multitude of domestic and...
Even in Recovery, Hidden Pandemics Loom
As vaccinations are being adopted worldwide, businesses are opening up, and people are rushing out into life again, I, like many others, can see the light at the end of the tunnel. At this moment, I find myself reflecting and looking ahead to a future beyond the pandemic, one with...
Emerging Opportunities to Solve Climate Change through Sustainable Finance
Last fall, record-setting fires here in California provided a small glimpse of what climate change has in store for us. Hundreds of thousands evacuated. Smoke darkened skies glowed an eerie orange for days. Health experts recommended staying indoors for weeks to avoid dangerously polluted air; but, of course, not everyone...
Changing Models for a Changing Landscape
As we all make our way through what has been an unprecedented year for so many around the world, I am struck by the way my experiences in philanthropy have shaped my understanding of the pandemic, clarified my sense of priorities, and inspired my sense of hope at the road...
Lessons Learned From Funding During 2020
I think we can all agree that 2020 has been a “Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad” year. As an individual funder, there are an infinite number of worthy funding opportunities. During the spring and early summer, I had trouble holding “a north star” as the funding landscape became increasingly volatile. I...
Democracy on the Brink: Coming Together to Reimagine our Grand Experiment
We are at a moment of reckoning around race and power that could change our society forever. The question now is whether we will change for the better or for the worse. On the one hand, there is much more public awareness of racial equity issues and how the country’s...
Question Everything
Sometimes the universe compels us to revisit our assumptions, motivations, and plans. This is surely one of those times. If you established a Donor Advised Fund (DAF) or a foundation, at some point, you made the choice to dedicate significant sums to the public good, and to cede some control...
You put a Black Lives Matter sign in your window and celebrated Juneteenth. What happens next?
As the protests that swept the country in the wake of George Floyd’s murder begin to wane, we’ve been asking ourselves what we can do to ensure that lasting change comes to America. Like many white people who consider ourselves allies, we marched, we put a “Black Lives Matter” sign...