Stanford Social Innovation Review

Is Philanthropy Going Open Source?

Several years ago, I wrote a book chapter about open source philanthropy. It is in The World We Want, edited by Peter Karoff and Jane Maddox and includes an interview with me called, “Open Sesame: Networks of Cooperation and Open Source Solutions.”

It presented seven building blocks for bringing open source principles to philanthropy.

These seven building blocks of open philanthropy are:

1. Facilitate adaptation; don’t hinder it
2. Design for interoperability; local specificity will follow
3. Build for the poorest
4. Assume upward adaptability
5. Creativity and control will happen locally
6. Diversity is essential
7. Complex problems require hybrid solutions

And more recently I’ve been thinking about public ideas, crowdsourcing innovation through Kluster or Social Innovation Camp, and now the folks at Social Edge are onto the idea - read this discussion on open source social entrepreneurship. If nothing else, the basic premises of seeking diverse input, trying some design methodologies such as rapid prototyping, and drawing from multiple disciplines are strategic approaches to solving social problems that are starting to gain some traction.

These concepts are all exciting, and they also raise some questions for philanthropy. Where are the lines between public and private when it comes to ideas for the public good? Can or should someone be able to own a policy innovation? Protect a service delivery process? Are all socially positive ideas public? How will new entities like L3Cs or B corporations re-mix the assumptions about ideas and innovation as proprietary sources of business proposition - or are they public goods?

What are the best ways to encourage creative thinking and bring the ideas to action? Is social entrepreneurship better at this than anything else? Are social entrepreneurs even paying attention to raging intellectual property debates - and, if so, how and why? What should they be asking? What should philanthropy be asking?

Posted by Katie Harrington

1 Comment(s) - View/Post Comments

Live from CoF: Immigration and Philanthropy

Yesterday at the Council on Foundations annual conference in Seattle, a session entitled “The Color of Democracy” ended with two very different stories.

Georgia Representative Anthony Sellier told his own history—how he migrated from Venezuela, sought an education, became a successful businessman, and now sits in the state legislature. He has lived the American dream. On the other hand, Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center, asked us to imagine the future of the children of undocumented immigrants. Historically, America has meant a better life, not always for migrants themselves, but at least for their offspring. Today, however, the second generation is accumulating disadvantage, and that, Suro said, is a “prescription for disaster.”

In 2006, as the immigration debate boiled, local governments attempted to bar or limit migrants’ access to housing, jobs, and healthcare, and empowered police to enforce immigration laws as part of their normal routine. Over the last year, as a result of Operation Return to Sender, 23,000 people have been detained, separating mothers from children and husbands from wives. The effect is dehumanizing.

Earlier in the session Sellier had told another story, about his friend Carlos, a Mexican immigrant from Sellier’s district in middle Georgia. Sellier’s church worked with Carlos through the long, difficult, and expensive process of applying for documentation. Now Carlos is the chief of a construction crew, and he recently called Sellier to complain about a competitor—a crew chief who hires only undocumented workers and pays lower wages. Sellier acknowledged that Carlos, who has gone the extra mile, shouldn’t have to compete with that chief for business.

But what about the crew of undocumented workers? If we take away their jobs, how will they survive?

What can we do to help them?

Is one partial answer more vigorous prosecution of employers who don’t pay minimum wage, thereby helping the workers while evening the playing field for people like Carlos?

As Suro said in his opening remarks, immigration holds a mirror to the host country. How we answer these questions will tell us much about ourselves. Please share your thoughts below.

Catherine DiBenedetto is the assistant editor of Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Posted by SSIR Editor

0 Comment(s) - View/Post Comments

Why Do People Give to Charity?

As an investment advisor, I regularly consult with wealthy individuals about how to maximize the financial resources at their disposal. I specialize in working with philanthropic families, and that work often lays bare the seeming conflict between maximizing resources and giving them away. If humans want to maximize the resources available to them, why do they take such joy in giving these resources away?

I believe that giving is motivated by humans’ deeply held need to find meaning in life. For most people, meaning is deeply intertwined with community connections (defining community as narrowly as family and as broadly as the full community of life). Humans want to feel a sense of connection and a sense of purpose to life. Giving (time, money, and energy) is a central way that we strive to find meaning.

Much has been made of selfish motivations behind giving. No doubt, some giving is motivated by selfishness. However, if we look to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (a central theory of what drives human behavior) we find that while humans are driven by items that benefit them, once these needs (food, sleep, security, etc.) are met, they are driven by the desire for self-actualization. Maslow describes self-actualizing people:

• They embrace the facts and realities of the world (including themselves) rather than denying or avoiding them.
• They are spontaneous in their ideas and actions.
• They are creative.
• They are interested in solving problems; this often includes the problems of others. Solving these problems is often a key focus in their lives.
• They feel a closeness to other people, and generally appreciate life.
• They have a system of morality that is fully internalized and independent of external authority.
• They have discernment and are able to view all things in an objective manner.

To me, this is a wonderful description of the very best philanthropists.

Because what is good for our community is good for each of us (in that individuals in thriving, happy communities are generally happier themselves), there is a way in which giving comes back to benefit the giver. This feedback loop is wonderful, but I believe that humans’ motivation to give is rooted in their desire to find meaning through community, not the hope that doing so will benefit them.

Recently, much research has focused on how our brains are hardwired to chemically reward us for acts of giving. To some, the idea that giving would trigger this sort of response implies a level of selfishness behind the act of charity. But this logic implicitly suggests that breathing, eating, and falling in love are all “selfish” as well, since our brain chemistry rewards us in similar ways for these actions. Rather than suggesting that giving is selfish, I think the research shows that giving is a central need/desire for humans. This is actually quite remarkable, since logic would dictate that giving is something we do for others, and that we must lose something for others to gain. Instead, the research suggests that giving is a motivation much like eating and breathing. It is something we must do to survive and thrive.

The motivations of each individual giver are of course unique. But just as we eat to satisfy our desire to live, we give to satisfy our desire for meaning.

Sean Stannard-Stockton is a principal and director of Tactical Philanthropy at Ensemble Capital Management. Ensemble Capital provides families both traditional investment management and philanthropic planning. He is the author of the blog Tactical Philanthropy and writes the column On Philanthropy for the Financial Times.

Posted by Katie Harrington

8 Comment(s) - View/Post Comments