Blog Posts
A SPARK OF LIGHT IN TEXAS
November 16, 2009 Last month I had the opportunity to participate in a remarkable event—President Barack Obama joined President George H.W. Bush in College Station, Texas, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Points of Light movement, begun in 1989 with President Bush’s inauguration speech. These leaders together created a…
WILL THE REAL NONPROFIT SECTOR PLEASE STAND UP?
November 13, 2009 Where are the spokespeople for the nonprofit sector’s distinctive value? Where are the people who will stand up and take issue when Jack and Suzy Welch write, as they did in their BusinessWeek column in 2007, “In most nonprofit situations, as long as you don’t screw up, you’re pretty much…
UNDERMINING OURSELVES
November 12, 2009 In subtle ways, those of us in the nonprofit sector contribute to the lack of appreciation for its strength when we act as though every good idea came from outside it and simply import the language and frameworks of business. Worse, doing so often leads to poor management…
CENTER IN THE NEWS
November 12, 2009 A front-page article in this week’s Chronicle of Philanthropy profiled the Social Impact Exchange, an initiative of the Growth Philanthropy Network, the Center, Duke’s CASE at Fuqua, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Also, Joel Fleishman was quoted in an article that appeared in yesterday’s New York Times on the topic of spend-down…
THE ATTACK FROM WITHIN
November 11, 2009 Yesterday, I argued that the nonprofit sector is under attack and discussed the critiques of those on the outside who promise that “business” and “market” thinking is the secret to greater effectiveness. But those of us within the sector also do ourselves a disservice by playing into the…
REPLY TO SEAN’S COMMENT
November 11, 2009 Sean, I agree we are likely operating well below our capacity to achieve impact. (I also believe business and government are performing sub-optimally.) I think the reasons are many so I’ll just name a few. The natural pull against staying focused is extremely strong. This pull comes from…
TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES
November 11, 2009 We’re having trouble getting the comments function of the blog to work properly, which is, unfortunately, frustrating Phil’s many eager commenters. To everyone who’s annoyed because they’ve been unable to toss a bouquet or hurl a brickbat—please accept our sincere apologies. We working as fast as we can to fix the…
THE ATTACK ON PHILANTHROPY
November 10, 2009 American philanthropy and the nonprofit sector it supports are under attack. The attack comes both from outside the boundaries of the sector and from within it. Hyperbole? I don’t think so. With recent books from Philanthrocapitalism to Uncharitable receiving prominent play—and their authors being feted by those within and outside the sector—there…
THE MOST HAPPENING FELLAS
November 5, 2009 The fever for social innovation is sweeping the nation faster than the spread of swine flu. It seems that just about every company has an innovation lab, and the nonprofit sector is not far behind. Even the White House has established an Office of Social Innovation, which hopes…
Events
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