This is the second and final part of a series of posts that looks at why I am skeptical that The Giving Pledge will have the kind of impact many people are saying it will. In Part I, I explored how the pledge is likely to have an extremely small impact on total giving, and how little money will likely benefit underserved communities.
Below, I look at how giving by billionaire philanthropists has typically been limited in its effectiveness and has dangerous implications for democratic decision-making.
Billionaire philanthropy has real limits and risks.
Billionaires don't typically like to share power.
Some forward-thinking foundations share power with communities by including grantees or the constituent perspective on their boards. Others share power by giving most of their grants in the form of unrestricted general operating support so that the leaders of the nonprofits can best decide how to spend the money.
But most billionaire philanthropists don't follow these practices. The current trend in philanthropy is to develop highly specific theories of change around narrowly defined issues, and then to look for nonprofits that can carry out the foundation's plan. It's often called "strategic philanthropy." In this approach, the billionaires and their families get to decide what the problems are facing communities and how best to solve them.
"What's wrong with that? It's their money," you might ask.
First, it's not entirely their money. Dollars donated by millionaires and billionaires should be thought of as partially public dollars. Given our current tax code, most gifts by the ultra-wealthy are subsidized at the 35 percent level by other taxpayers. A foundation created with a $1 billion gift is really $650 million from the donor and $350 million from the tax-paying public. When tax-exempt donations are made, the U.S. Treasury forgoes revenue, and other taxpayers pay higher rates to make up the difference.
Second, there are real risks for democracy when we allow billionaires to have undue influence on public institutions. It has been well documented how the charitable choices of the ultra-wealthy are influencing government policy in this country and around the world. For just one example, look to an opinion piece in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where education historian Diane Ravitch explains, "A foundation's offer of a multimillion-dollar grant is enough to cause most superintendents and school boards to drop everything and reorder their priorities."
Third, having billionaires tightly control the decision-making process is not optimally effective, for three reasons.
- Overwhelming evidence from groups like Grantmakers for Effective Organizations and the Center for Effective Philanthropy shows that when nonprofits receive unrestricted support, they have greater impact. That's because the people closest to the problems, those running nonprofits, often have important insights about how to find solutions. So to increase impact, billionaire pledge-takers would be wise to give more unrestricted funding.
- Research by theorist Scott Page demonstrates that diverse groups make better decisions, so a foundation that has a diverse board is likely to be more effective than a foundation with a small board that includes only the donor and a few members of his or her family. Advisory committees are a good half-way step, but there is no substitute for truly sharing power by adding community perspectives to the board of trustees.
- Another way billionaires often fall short of being optimally effective is that they tend to favor technocratic approaches to solving social problems. Yet, as philanthropy expert Michael Edwards points out in his latest book, many of the most pressing challenges we face are not best addressed with a business-oriented approach. Thorny social problems require investments in civil society and social justice, not technocratic business-driven solutions. Unfortunately, despite the fact that it is well documented that foundation investments in advocacy, community organizing and civic engagement have an incredibly high return on investment, few high-net-worth donors currently focus on promoting social justice in these ways.
Happily, a few of the billionaire donors who have taken the pledge are leaders in social justice giving. Herb and Marion Sandler are among them -- they're big supporters of grassroots community organizing. Jean and Steve Case, too, have devoted more than 30 percent of their foundation's grant dollars to social justice causes, primarily by investing heavily in civic engagement. But these donors are the exception rather than the rule among billionaire philanthropists.
What's needed to mitigate these risks and limitations is for billionaire pledge-takers to recognize that donors, taxpayers and nonprofits are really all partners in pursuit of the common good. We all have certain rights and responsibilities in this partnership. And as true partners, we need to share power. If signers of The Giving Pledge think about their philanthropy in this way, it will help democratize their work and lead to better results.
(For more critiques of strategic philanthropy, check out these posts from Sean Stannard-Stockton, Susan Berresford and William Schambra.)
Final Thoughts
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once noted, "Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary."
As I stated up front, all things considered, I'm glad the Gateses and Mr. Buffett started The Giving Pledge. It's better for our nation and the world to have billionaires giving to charity than to leave vast amounts of their wealth exclusively to their kids. I hope this initiative inspires bolder giving from billionaires, millionaires and the rest of us.
But it's not just the amount of giving that matters. The quality of the giving matters, too.
Thus far, The Giving Pledge has been silent on these questions of quality, following a politically safer route that says implicitly that all charitable giving is noble and of equal value. But that's just not true. The choices philanthropists make determine to what extent the common good is served by their generosity. We should all hope they make good choices.
Capacity vs. Usage
Kepes emphasizes the following financial benefits of Infrastructure-as-a-Service:
- Economies of scale - IaaS vendors can offer cheaper access to infrastructure by purchasing equipment in bulk.
- Pay as you go for what you use - With cloud computing, you can pay for what you use, like a utility, instead of investing in a fixed capacity infrastructure that may either exceed or fall short of your organization's needs.
- Cloud services can be paid for out of the operating expenditures budget - And because computing resources are paid for like a utility, they can be paid for out of the operating expendetures budget instead of capital investments.
Kepes then emphasizes the need for organizations to select IaaS vendors that allow them to actually take advantage of these benefits. For example, it's important that customers make sure than billing for cloud services is as granular as possible.
Kepes also looks at issues such as Service Level Agreements, support and compliance. This is the first of a series of free white papers by Kepes. Hopefully we'll see further depth and some papers for more advanced practitioners.
Photo credits: Flickr user Kevin Dooley
robert shumake
Moore: EA not backing away from Tiger <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net
Read our news of Moore: EA not backing away from Tiger.
John Roberts Leaves CNN for Fox <b>News</b> - NYTimes.com
Executives at CNN confirmed Monday that John Roberts, who served as the morning anchor for the network since April 2007, would be joining Fox News as a national correspondent.
Dawn Comes Twice in European Solar Eclipse - AOL <b>News</b>
A partial solar eclipse darkened European skies just after dawn this morning, casting an eerie darkness over the continent just as morning light was supposed to be spreading. But cloud cover prevented sky-gazers across much of the ...
robert shumake detroit
Moore: EA not backing away from Tiger <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net
Read our news of Moore: EA not backing away from Tiger.
John Roberts Leaves CNN for Fox <b>News</b> - NYTimes.com
Executives at CNN confirmed Monday that John Roberts, who served as the morning anchor for the network since April 2007, would be joining Fox News as a national correspondent.
Dawn Comes Twice in European Solar Eclipse - AOL <b>News</b>
A partial solar eclipse darkened European skies just after dawn this morning, casting an eerie darkness over the continent just as morning light was supposed to be spreading. But cloud cover prevented sky-gazers across much of the ...
robert shumake
This is the second and final part of a series of posts that looks at why I am skeptical that The Giving Pledge will have the kind of impact many people are saying it will. In Part I, I explored how the pledge is likely to have an extremely small impact on total giving, and how little money will likely benefit underserved communities.
Below, I look at how giving by billionaire philanthropists has typically been limited in its effectiveness and has dangerous implications for democratic decision-making.
Billionaire philanthropy has real limits and risks.
Billionaires don't typically like to share power.
Some forward-thinking foundations share power with communities by including grantees or the constituent perspective on their boards. Others share power by giving most of their grants in the form of unrestricted general operating support so that the leaders of the nonprofits can best decide how to spend the money.
But most billionaire philanthropists don't follow these practices. The current trend in philanthropy is to develop highly specific theories of change around narrowly defined issues, and then to look for nonprofits that can carry out the foundation's plan. It's often called "strategic philanthropy." In this approach, the billionaires and their families get to decide what the problems are facing communities and how best to solve them.
"What's wrong with that? It's their money," you might ask.
First, it's not entirely their money. Dollars donated by millionaires and billionaires should be thought of as partially public dollars. Given our current tax code, most gifts by the ultra-wealthy are subsidized at the 35 percent level by other taxpayers. A foundation created with a $1 billion gift is really $650 million from the donor and $350 million from the tax-paying public. When tax-exempt donations are made, the U.S. Treasury forgoes revenue, and other taxpayers pay higher rates to make up the difference.
Second, there are real risks for democracy when we allow billionaires to have undue influence on public institutions. It has been well documented how the charitable choices of the ultra-wealthy are influencing government policy in this country and around the world. For just one example, look to an opinion piece in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where education historian Diane Ravitch explains, "A foundation's offer of a multimillion-dollar grant is enough to cause most superintendents and school boards to drop everything and reorder their priorities."
Third, having billionaires tightly control the decision-making process is not optimally effective, for three reasons.
- Overwhelming evidence from groups like Grantmakers for Effective Organizations and the Center for Effective Philanthropy shows that when nonprofits receive unrestricted support, they have greater impact. That's because the people closest to the problems, those running nonprofits, often have important insights about how to find solutions. So to increase impact, billionaire pledge-takers would be wise to give more unrestricted funding.
- Research by theorist Scott Page demonstrates that diverse groups make better decisions, so a foundation that has a diverse board is likely to be more effective than a foundation with a small board that includes only the donor and a few members of his or her family. Advisory committees are a good half-way step, but there is no substitute for truly sharing power by adding community perspectives to the board of trustees.
- Another way billionaires often fall short of being optimally effective is that they tend to favor technocratic approaches to solving social problems. Yet, as philanthropy expert Michael Edwards points out in his latest book, many of the most pressing challenges we face are not best addressed with a business-oriented approach. Thorny social problems require investments in civil society and social justice, not technocratic business-driven solutions. Unfortunately, despite the fact that it is well documented that foundation investments in advocacy, community organizing and civic engagement have an incredibly high return on investment, few high-net-worth donors currently focus on promoting social justice in these ways.
Happily, a few of the billionaire donors who have taken the pledge are leaders in social justice giving. Herb and Marion Sandler are among them -- they're big supporters of grassroots community organizing. Jean and Steve Case, too, have devoted more than 30 percent of their foundation's grant dollars to social justice causes, primarily by investing heavily in civic engagement. But these donors are the exception rather than the rule among billionaire philanthropists.
What's needed to mitigate these risks and limitations is for billionaire pledge-takers to recognize that donors, taxpayers and nonprofits are really all partners in pursuit of the common good. We all have certain rights and responsibilities in this partnership. And as true partners, we need to share power. If signers of The Giving Pledge think about their philanthropy in this way, it will help democratize their work and lead to better results.
(For more critiques of strategic philanthropy, check out these posts from Sean Stannard-Stockton, Susan Berresford and William Schambra.)
Final Thoughts
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once noted, "Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary."
As I stated up front, all things considered, I'm glad the Gateses and Mr. Buffett started The Giving Pledge. It's better for our nation and the world to have billionaires giving to charity than to leave vast amounts of their wealth exclusively to their kids. I hope this initiative inspires bolder giving from billionaires, millionaires and the rest of us.
But it's not just the amount of giving that matters. The quality of the giving matters, too.
Thus far, The Giving Pledge has been silent on these questions of quality, following a politically safer route that says implicitly that all charitable giving is noble and of equal value. But that's just not true. The choices philanthropists make determine to what extent the common good is served by their generosity. We should all hope they make good choices.
Capacity vs. Usage
Kepes emphasizes the following financial benefits of Infrastructure-as-a-Service:
- Economies of scale - IaaS vendors can offer cheaper access to infrastructure by purchasing equipment in bulk.
- Pay as you go for what you use - With cloud computing, you can pay for what you use, like a utility, instead of investing in a fixed capacity infrastructure that may either exceed or fall short of your organization's needs.
- Cloud services can be paid for out of the operating expenditures budget - And because computing resources are paid for like a utility, they can be paid for out of the operating expendetures budget instead of capital investments.
Kepes then emphasizes the need for organizations to select IaaS vendors that allow them to actually take advantage of these benefits. For example, it's important that customers make sure than billing for cloud services is as granular as possible.
Kepes also looks at issues such as Service Level Agreements, support and compliance. This is the first of a series of free white papers by Kepes. Hopefully we'll see further depth and some papers for more advanced practitioners.
Photo credits: Flickr user Kevin Dooley
robert shumake detroit
robert shumake
Moore: EA not backing away from Tiger <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net
Read our news of Moore: EA not backing away from Tiger.
John Roberts Leaves CNN for Fox <b>News</b> - NYTimes.com
Executives at CNN confirmed Monday that John Roberts, who served as the morning anchor for the network since April 2007, would be joining Fox News as a national correspondent.
Dawn Comes Twice in European Solar Eclipse - AOL <b>News</b>
A partial solar eclipse darkened European skies just after dawn this morning, casting an eerie darkness over the continent just as morning light was supposed to be spreading. But cloud cover prevented sky-gazers across much of the ...
robert shumake
Moore: EA not backing away from Tiger <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net
Read our news of Moore: EA not backing away from Tiger.
John Roberts Leaves CNN for Fox <b>News</b> - NYTimes.com
Executives at CNN confirmed Monday that John Roberts, who served as the morning anchor for the network since April 2007, would be joining Fox News as a national correspondent.
Dawn Comes Twice in European Solar Eclipse - AOL <b>News</b>
A partial solar eclipse darkened European skies just after dawn this morning, casting an eerie darkness over the continent just as morning light was supposed to be spreading. But cloud cover prevented sky-gazers across much of the ...
robert shumake detroit
Times are tough. The bills keep coming and the rent or mortgage is due. You are stressing out and don't know what to do to make ends meet.
The only options are to either increase your income or decrease your expenses, and if the former is not going to happen then you need to look at what expenses you can cut out of your life. Google Voice to the rescue.
Google Voice, formerly known as Grand Central, is a telephone calling, texting and answering service. The San Francisco Chronicle has reported that the service provides a telephone number with SMS and voicemail service that "acts like a central hub."
The Google Voice service is not a substitute for a cell phone or landline. Rather, it is a supplement. The phone number that is provided is actually a number that is like a first-contact number, as in the call is placed to that number and then the call is routed to one or more numbers at the same time. Thus, it is the perfect number to give to people whom you are dating or to write on those forms that require a phone number in order to enter a contest or claim a gift.
The coolest benefit to this free Google Voice system is the fact that it can store your text and phone messages. It can even transcribe your voice messages and place them in your inbox, in both audio file and written text format, according to a review of Google Voice by The New York Times.
How to Save Money with Google Voice
You may be able to save money with Google Voice in a variety of ways. First, as a customer you need to analyze your phone bill to see how much you are spending on your phone services every month. Do you really need that expensive cell phone? Maybe not if you have a landline at home or a direct line at the office.
You can give your friends and family your Google Voice number and when they call that number your office, home and any other phone numbers will ring at the same time. Consequently, you may not need that cell phone. Sure, you can buy some cheap cell phone to keep with you in emergencies. All in all, you should examine the services offered by Google Voice to see if it fits your lifestyle.
How to Make Money with Google Voice
Making money with Google Voice is a lot different than saving money. The key here is to maximize the use of the free services offered by the service, especially if you have a business that uses a lot of telephone services. Also, the voicemail transcription service almost eliminates the need for a secretary so that is less money spent and more profit.
Lastly, you could simply call yourself and leave a message with the contents of lengthy email
messages or letters and Google Voice will transcribe it all for you and have it available lightning fast so you can send it via email or in printed form through the postal service.
These are just a few ideas on how you can save money or make money with the great free service offered by Google Voice.
Sources
About Google Voice, Google.com/googlevoice
"The Tech Chronicles," Verne Kopytoff, The San Francisco Chronicle, June 29, 2009.
"Google's free phone manager could threaten a variety of services," Miguel Helft, The New York Times, March 12, 2009.
robert shumake
Moore: EA not backing away from Tiger <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net
Read our news of Moore: EA not backing away from Tiger.
John Roberts Leaves CNN for Fox <b>News</b> - NYTimes.com
Executives at CNN confirmed Monday that John Roberts, who served as the morning anchor for the network since April 2007, would be joining Fox News as a national correspondent.
Dawn Comes Twice in European Solar Eclipse - AOL <b>News</b>
A partial solar eclipse darkened European skies just after dawn this morning, casting an eerie darkness over the continent just as morning light was supposed to be spreading. But cloud cover prevented sky-gazers across much of the ...
robert shumake
robert shumake
This is the second and final part of a series of posts that looks at why I am skeptical that The Giving Pledge will have the kind of impact many people are saying it will. In Part I, I explored how the pledge is likely to have an extremely small impact on total giving, and how little money will likely benefit underserved communities.
Below, I look at how giving by billionaire philanthropists has typically been limited in its effectiveness and has dangerous implications for democratic decision-making.
Billionaire philanthropy has real limits and risks.
Billionaires don't typically like to share power.
Some forward-thinking foundations share power with communities by including grantees or the constituent perspective on their boards. Others share power by giving most of their grants in the form of unrestricted general operating support so that the leaders of the nonprofits can best decide how to spend the money.
But most billionaire philanthropists don't follow these practices. The current trend in philanthropy is to develop highly specific theories of change around narrowly defined issues, and then to look for nonprofits that can carry out the foundation's plan. It's often called "strategic philanthropy." In this approach, the billionaires and their families get to decide what the problems are facing communities and how best to solve them.
"What's wrong with that? It's their money," you might ask.
First, it's not entirely their money. Dollars donated by millionaires and billionaires should be thought of as partially public dollars. Given our current tax code, most gifts by the ultra-wealthy are subsidized at the 35 percent level by other taxpayers. A foundation created with a $1 billion gift is really $650 million from the donor and $350 million from the tax-paying public. When tax-exempt donations are made, the U.S. Treasury forgoes revenue, and other taxpayers pay higher rates to make up the difference.
Second, there are real risks for democracy when we allow billionaires to have undue influence on public institutions. It has been well documented how the charitable choices of the ultra-wealthy are influencing government policy in this country and around the world. For just one example, look to an opinion piece in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where education historian Diane Ravitch explains, "A foundation's offer of a multimillion-dollar grant is enough to cause most superintendents and school boards to drop everything and reorder their priorities."
Third, having billionaires tightly control the decision-making process is not optimally effective, for three reasons.
- Overwhelming evidence from groups like Grantmakers for Effective Organizations and the Center for Effective Philanthropy shows that when nonprofits receive unrestricted support, they have greater impact. That's because the people closest to the problems, those running nonprofits, often have important insights about how to find solutions. So to increase impact, billionaire pledge-takers would be wise to give more unrestricted funding.
- Research by theorist Scott Page demonstrates that diverse groups make better decisions, so a foundation that has a diverse board is likely to be more effective than a foundation with a small board that includes only the donor and a few members of his or her family. Advisory committees are a good half-way step, but there is no substitute for truly sharing power by adding community perspectives to the board of trustees.
- Another way billionaires often fall short of being optimally effective is that they tend to favor technocratic approaches to solving social problems. Yet, as philanthropy expert Michael Edwards points out in his latest book, many of the most pressing challenges we face are not best addressed with a business-oriented approach. Thorny social problems require investments in civil society and social justice, not technocratic business-driven solutions. Unfortunately, despite the fact that it is well documented that foundation investments in advocacy, community organizing and civic engagement have an incredibly high return on investment, few high-net-worth donors currently focus on promoting social justice in these ways.
Happily, a few of the billionaire donors who have taken the pledge are leaders in social justice giving. Herb and Marion Sandler are among them -- they're big supporters of grassroots community organizing. Jean and Steve Case, too, have devoted more than 30 percent of their foundation's grant dollars to social justice causes, primarily by investing heavily in civic engagement. But these donors are the exception rather than the rule among billionaire philanthropists.
What's needed to mitigate these risks and limitations is for billionaire pledge-takers to recognize that donors, taxpayers and nonprofits are really all partners in pursuit of the common good. We all have certain rights and responsibilities in this partnership. And as true partners, we need to share power. If signers of The Giving Pledge think about their philanthropy in this way, it will help democratize their work and lead to better results.
(For more critiques of strategic philanthropy, check out these posts from Sean Stannard-Stockton, Susan Berresford and William Schambra.)
Final Thoughts
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once noted, "Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary."
As I stated up front, all things considered, I'm glad the Gateses and Mr. Buffett started The Giving Pledge. It's better for our nation and the world to have billionaires giving to charity than to leave vast amounts of their wealth exclusively to their kids. I hope this initiative inspires bolder giving from billionaires, millionaires and the rest of us.
But it's not just the amount of giving that matters. The quality of the giving matters, too.
Thus far, The Giving Pledge has been silent on these questions of quality, following a politically safer route that says implicitly that all charitable giving is noble and of equal value. But that's just not true. The choices philanthropists make determine to what extent the common good is served by their generosity. We should all hope they make good choices.
Capacity vs. Usage
Kepes emphasizes the following financial benefits of Infrastructure-as-a-Service:
- Economies of scale - IaaS vendors can offer cheaper access to infrastructure by purchasing equipment in bulk.
- Pay as you go for what you use - With cloud computing, you can pay for what you use, like a utility, instead of investing in a fixed capacity infrastructure that may either exceed or fall short of your organization's needs.
- Cloud services can be paid for out of the operating expenditures budget - And because computing resources are paid for like a utility, they can be paid for out of the operating expendetures budget instead of capital investments.
Kepes then emphasizes the need for organizations to select IaaS vendors that allow them to actually take advantage of these benefits. For example, it's important that customers make sure than billing for cloud services is as granular as possible.
Kepes also looks at issues such as Service Level Agreements, support and compliance. This is the first of a series of free white papers by Kepes. Hopefully we'll see further depth and some papers for more advanced practitioners.
Photo credits: Flickr user Kevin Dooley
robert shumake detroit
Moore: EA not backing away from Tiger <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net
Read our news of Moore: EA not backing away from Tiger.
John Roberts Leaves CNN for Fox <b>News</b> - NYTimes.com
Executives at CNN confirmed Monday that John Roberts, who served as the morning anchor for the network since April 2007, would be joining Fox News as a national correspondent.
Dawn Comes Twice in European Solar Eclipse - AOL <b>News</b>
A partial solar eclipse darkened European skies just after dawn this morning, casting an eerie darkness over the continent just as morning light was supposed to be spreading. But cloud cover prevented sky-gazers across much of the ...
robert shumake detroit
robert shumake detroit
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