This post began as an innocent nod to the Calgary Microcredit Conference that is taking place on September 11. In Alberta, just as in many places, we are seeing folks come forward into the nonprofit sector and social space who want to do more than donate their money.
Philanthropy
Last week, R. Andrew Sweeny, President of The Philadelphia Foundation, published an editorial in the The Philadelphia Inquirer that includes some tough-love but sound advice for nonprofit managers. The editorial, although targeted at nonprofits operating in the Philadelphia area, rings true north of the Canada-U.S. border.
I'm pleased to announce that SocialFinance.ca will be helping to coordinate the social media coverage of the Social Capital Markets 2010 conference in San Francisco on October 4th, 5th, and 6th. For those of us north of the U.S. / Canada border, SoCap represents an annual opportunity to check in with our dynamic neighbours to the south as well as many of the movers and shakers in social finance internationally.
Community Foundations of Canada, together with Philanthropic Foundations Canada, has just released a report, The State of Community/Mission Investment of Canadian Foundations by Coro Strandberg, one of Canada’s true experts in this space.
It’s a good read, telling the stories of and drawing lessons from nine foundations across the country that are using their assets – not just their grants – to directly support economic development domestically and internationally – jobs for the hard-to-employ, affordable housing, conservation, sustainable venture capital, and non-profit capacity building.
In her recently released book, Disrupting Philanthropy - co-authored with Edward Skloot and Barry Varela, Dr. Lucy Bernholz explores the immediate and longer-term implications of networked digital technologies for philanthropy. 10 years ago the landscape of philanthropy was relatively simple. "There were foundations - private, community, and corporate - that awarded grants to non-profits. Givers gathered information about non-profits mainly through word-of-mouth. Commercial investment firms were relatively small players on the philanthropic landscape." In 2010 the landscape is very different.
Jeff Mowatt on Three Business Models for the Bottom Billion
Sep 03, 2010