Comments on: Tactical Philanthropy Podcast: Stacy Palmer Interview

By: Kathy Smith

Kathy Smith — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 02:48:54 +0000

I vote for Pride @ Work. Jeremy is a terrific leader and partner in the labor movement.

By: Stacy Palmer

Stacy Palmer — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 12:58:07 +0000

Thank you for your comments, Phil. You sum up exactly what we hoped for when we started Give and Take. We continue to appreciate suggestions for blogs we should be looking at regularly — so I encourage all Tactical Philanthropy readers to let us know if we are missing key blogs or postings.
We also know that good blogging takes a lot of work, so we want to say thank you to everyone who is taking the time to be so thoughtful about what is happening in the nonprofit world.

By: Phil

Phil — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 03:19:06 +0000

Stacy,

Thank you for doing the podcast with Sean. Give and Take was a big breakthrough for those of us blogging philanthropy. In a real way it was a validation of efforts that might otherwise have been marginal.

If Philanthropy has a “Blog of Record” it would be Give and Take. Where a given blog might have a slant or impassioned voice, Give and Take scans the blogosphere and bestows attention where attention is deserved. Thank you for making that possible.

By: Stacy Palmer

Stacy Palmer — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:43:39 +0000

Sean, thanks for the question. We see the same thing in our letters and opinion page, and sometimes in our reporting — where foundation employees will only comment off the record or not for attribution. Given that unwillingness to comment, it probably would be news if a program officer said she disagreed with her employer’s official view. That said, if more people would speak out, it no longer would be so newsy when one person voiced a disagreement. I hope more foundation employees will feel comfortable speaking out, and foundation officials could encourage that by commending workers who have the guts to say something controversial in public. The nonprofit world will never improve its operations unless more people within the field feel comfortable sharing their expertise and opinions.

By: Sean Stannard-Stockton

Sean Stannard-Stockton — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:34:11 +0000

Stacy, not many foundation employees comment on these pages. Part of the reason I think is their perception that any comment would be read as a statement “by” the foundation. This is bizarre to me, since employees of corporations have their own blogs, comment on blogs and generally operate without huge concern (unless they are bad mouthing their employer).

As a reporter, how would you view comments from foundation employees on this blog? If an employee at EMCF or Robert Wood Johnson gave their opinion on mission related investing or video games and philanthropy, would you view that as a statement from the foundation? If it contradicted the foundation’s “official” view on the subject, would you see that as “news”?

By: Stacy Palmer

Stacy Palmer — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:12:34 +0000

Albert, thanks for your kind words about our staff members. We all enjoy keeping up with the philanthropy blogs — and hope more people will start debating the issues you and your colleagues have been raising.

As I said to Sean, we feel very strongly at the Chronicle that we are not the experts about philanthropy and the nonprofit world. The joy of our jobs as reporters and editors is that we get to ask everybody else what they think about how foundations and charities operate and what could be done better, and then tell all our readers what we find. We always welcome suggestions about people who have new or provocative observations, especially for our op-ed pages, so please send ideas my way.

By: Stacy Palmer

Stacy Palmer — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 20:01:03 +0000

Bruce, great to have your question. Grant seekers — even very sophisticated ones — continue to be mystified by the process by which grantees are selected so that is a sign to me that grant makers need to be clearer about how they make decisions. And I also think they need to do what Holden is suggesting — talk more clearly about what approaches are working and what ones just don’t make sense. Still, foundations have come a long way since The Chronicle started publishing. Twenty years ago, many grant makers hoped we would not publish lists of grants because they feared that would cause too many organizations to apply for money.

By: Stacy Palmer

Stacy Palmer — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 19:53:25 +0000

Thanks for your comments. I completely agree that more reporting needs to be done on what approaches work and what doesn’t. We hope to do that as the newspaper grows, but I think it is also something that foundations could help publicize. Paul Brest of Hewlett has some interesting thoughts on this in his essay in the new annual report, online at http://annualreport.hewlett.org/statement/index.asp

By: Albert

Albert — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 19:41:46 +0000

Hi, Stacy. Thanks for doing this podcast, and for lending us Peter Panepento, Ian Wilhelm, and Heather Joslyn. They do a great job with Give & Take.

You’ve been covering the field for such a long time that I assume there are some aspects of the way foundations do their work that are frustrating to you or that strike you as wrongheaded. I realize that as a journalist you can’t permit yourself to opine, but if you had a “friend” who shared some of your frustrations, what would she say?

By: Bruce Trachtenberg

Bruce Trachtenberg — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 18:54:27 +0000

Stacy–
Always good to hear from you. And thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. Quick question, can you elaborate a bit more on your comment: “I think we are still seeing foundations wrestle with how much should they say in public and how much should they be private about.” What are foundations holding back from the public?

By: Holden

Holden — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 18:22:16 +0000

Here’s what has befuddled me since I started getting into this sector: why do discussions of “philanthropy” never seem to involve discussing how to help people?

Philanthropy blogs talk sometimes about fundraising, sometimes about structural issues, investing, foundations, social media tools, etc. I subscribe to the Chronicle, and it has a lot of stories about how much people give and how to raise money.

I am somewhat interested in this stuff, as someone who has gotten involved in philanthropy. But I am 800x more interested in questions like, “What works in education? Do extracurricular activities get you anywhere, or do you need to change kids’ school environments to help them learn?” and “What’s going on with malaria? Have we made any progress fighting it? Where is it still prevalent? Are nets the answer, or should we be spraying DDT?”

These were the only questions I was interested in, back when I was a donor. Now, working for a grantmaker, they are still the main ones.

I understand that these questions pertain to “subsectors” of philanthropy, so maybe a general philanthropy publication shouldn’t be focusing on them … but who should? Who is? Are these conversations happening anywhere?