For those of you who were unable to attend the Tactical Philanthropy Forum featuring Paul Shoemaker, Bill Somerville and Bill Schambra in January, we’re happy to now have video of the full event.
Above you’ll find Part I of the debate. You can find video of the full event via the links below:
Thanks to everyone who braved the crazy Bay Area weather to make it out to the Tactical Philanthropy Forum last night. The room was packed and we got excellent audience questions. Bill Schambra, Paul Shoemaker and Bill Somerville unsurprisingly pulled no punches as they debated the potential of philanthropy to solve truly “unconstrained” problems.
You can see raw video footage of the Forum here. We’ll be releasing edited video in a couple of weeks.
The response to the Forum was so strong that we’re definitely going to continue hosting these events. If you have ideas for topics or speakers you would like to see, let us know via comment or email.
The Tactical Philanthropy Forum is completely sold out with a waitlist of 23 people. So we’re pleased to be able to offer a live stream of the event today. Come back here at 7pm pacific time tonight to catch, William Schambra, Paul Shoemaker, Bill Somerville and myself debate the merits, or lack thereof, of Unconstrained Philanthropy. The Forum response has been so strong that we’re planning on making the Forum concept a regular event.
If you have any problem viewing the live stream, you can view it directly by clicking here.
This Tactical Philanthropy Forum will introduce the concept of "Unconstrained Philanthropy." Should donors and funders see their role as one of correcting and optimizing existing social systems, or do they have an opportunity to remake the social fabric? The Forum panel will engage in a robust debate of the appropriate role of donors and foundations in the complex systems of the social sector.
The conversation will examine the practicality of funders striving to fix the root cause of social problems and the trade-offs between focusing on tangible community issues versus tackling systematic interventions. The conversation will center on real-world applications and is designed for a cross-disciplinary audience. Anyone and everyone interested in a new and better social sector are encouraged to participate. Both social sector professionals and individual donors will enjoy the evening’s event. All attendees are asked to follow a strict policy of non-solicitation.
The Tactical Philanthropy Forum is now sold out. Thanks to everyone for the enthusiastic response. If you were hoping to attend, you can still add yourself to the waitlist.
See everyone next Wednesday. I think we’re going to have a vibrant discussion!
Just a quick notice that there are only nine tickets left for the Tactical Philanthropy Forum event on January 20 in San Francisco.
In this session of the Tactical Philanthropy Forum we will introduce the concept of Unconstrained Philanthropy. Should donors and funders see their role as one of correcting and optimizing existing social systems or do they have an opportunity to remake the social fabric?
This Tactical Philanthropy Forum event brings together William Schambra of the Hudson Institute’s Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal, Bill Somerville of the Philanthropic Ventures Foundation and Paul Shoemaker of Social Venture Partners. The panel will engage in a robust debate of the appropriate role of donors and foundations in the complex systems of the social sector.
Sean Stannard-Stockton, CEO of Tactical Philanthropy Advisors, author of the Tactical Philanthropy blog and columnist for the Chronicle of Philanthropy will moderate. The conversation will examine the practicality of funders striving to fix the root cause of social problems and the tradeoffs between focusing on tangible community issues versus tackling systematic interventions.
Click here to register before we sell out!
We sold over 20% of the tickets to the coming Tactical Philanthropy Forum in the last 24 hours. The 2008 event sold out in seven days, so if you are interested in attending I encourage you to register now.
For a little taste of what the event is all about, check out the video from the Tactical Philanthropy Forum we held in 2008 with Paul Brest and Bill Somerville.
Full video
A highlight of Paul Brest
A highlight of Bill Somerville
I’m happy to announce the return of the Tactical Philanthropy Forum. Last year’s very successful event featuring Paul Brest and Bill Somerville sold out in just seven days and drew over a hundred people to the lively debate in San Francisco. You can see the video of that debate here.
Today we’re announcing a new Forum debate on January 20 in San Francisco. I hope you can join us!
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You’re invited to a special Tactical Philanthropy Forum with the Hudson Institute’s Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal.
In this session of the Tactical Philanthropy Forum we will introduce the concept of Unconstrained Philanthropy. Should donors and funders see their role as one of correcting and optimizing existing social systems or do they have an opportunity to remake the social fabric?
This Tactical Philanthropy Forum event brings together William Schambra of the Hudson Institute’s Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal, Bill Somerville of the Philanthropic Ventures Foundation and Paul Shoemaker of Social Venture Partners. The panel will engage in a robust debate of the appropriate role of donors and foundations in the complex systems of the social sector.
Sean Stannard-Stockton, CEO of Tactical Philanthropy Advisors, author of the Tactical Philanthropy blog and columnist for the Chronicle of Philanthropy will moderate. The conversation will examine the practicality of funders striving to fix the root cause of social problems and the tradeoffs between focusing on tangible community issues versus tackling systematic interventions.
Like all Tactical Philanthropy Forum events, the conversation will center on real world applications and is designed for a cross-disciplinary audience. Anyone and everyone interested in a new and better social sector are encouraged to participate. Both social sector professionals and individual donors will enjoy the evening’s event. All attendees are asked to follow a strict policy of non-solicitation.
This event is offered in partnership with the Foundation Center and is being held in the World Affairs Council’s conference room. Please join us beginning at 6:00pm for wine and hors d’oeuvres.
When: January 20, 2010 from 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Where: The Foundation Center, 312 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA 94108
Past Tactical Philanthropy Forums have benefited from invitation recipients forwarding information about the event to friends and colleagues. You can easily forward this blog post by clicking on the Email This Post icon below.
It just came to my attention that the editorial team at FORA.tv, who filmed the Tactical Philanthropy Forum, have created “highlights” of the event. Since the full video was over an hour long, I thought I’d post this two minute clip of Bill Somerville arguing that foundations don’t take risks, that they suffer from the “Ford Foundation Syndrome,” and that community foundations suffer from a bureaucratic mess of their own making. Whew! Bill really let loose!
Next we have a two minute clip of a more restrained Paul Brest explaining the concept of Strategic Philanthropy. But note that Paul has recently been a bit less restrained in his blog posts regarding Charity Navigator and NCRP’s Criteria for Philanthropy.
The video of the Tactical Philanthropy Forum is now available on Fora.tv. You can watch the first 15 minutes of the event via the embedded video or jump below to read about viewing the full hour long program and accessing specific segments.
You can watch the full video here. If you want to jump around, click here to access the FORA.tv menu of option for the video. You can click on the various titled chapters. In Chapter 2, I layout the history of the Tactical Philanthropy blog and the purpose of the Forum. You can than click on the other chapters to view Paul Brest, Bill Somerville and myself discussing various issues.
Well, boy that was a lot of fun! The Forum went over great last night. The turn out was strong, Somerville & Brest responded to my request that they actually explore their differences and not just agree that both appraoches are needed. FORA.tv covered the Forum, so as soon as the video is edited I’ll be posting the entire event.
I solicited written questions for Bill and Paul and got so many that I only got to pose about 20% to them. So I told the audience that I would start posting some of the additional questions here on the blog and Bill and Paul agreed to answer at least some of them. Of course, I invite everyone to answer these questions.
The discussion ranged across a number of issues and Bill and Paul kept jumping in to give their two cents even when a question was only directed at one of them. As a reminder, Paul was advocting for the idea of strategy and Bill is much more interested in “locating outstanding people doing important work” and using “intuition” to decide whom to fund. This first question references strategy and so is directed at Paul. But the question also touches on how to source knowledge from the community and so Bill will have a strong perspective. This question comes from a member of the audience:
Given the value of strategy in philanthropy, who should be involved in developing strategy? How does the foundation seek and use diverse perspectives in formulating strategy? After all, foundation staff don’t have a corner on wisdom…
A lot of the conversation last night centered on the tension between creating a strong strategy and needing to trust grantees. So what is the answer to the audience member’s question? It’s a good one.
