Blogs and Philanthropy

Critical Mass thought And yet, before last week, there were no philanthropy blogs! It was a terrible hole in the blogospheric ozone. Thankfully, that hole has now been filled. Welcome, Philanthropoid

I am not sure that Erin is correct.  There's Nonprofit Organization News, onPhilanthropy,   The Philanthopy Blog and The Chronicle of Philanthropy. 

When I think of philanthropy, I'm thinking about the giver.  There's the other side, the recipient.  Recipients often organize to raise money.  This has a bunch of names: Institutional Advancement, Development, and Fundraising.

The Philanthropic Initiative, Inc. is a non-profit philanthropic consulting firm founded in 1989 to help donors increase the impact of their philanthropy. Over the years, TPI has gained considerable experience in designing, implementing and evaluating a wide range of philanthropic programs and grants initiatives on behalf of individual donors, families, foundations and corporations. Our commitment is to help our clients identify their philanthropic interests and passions and to create strategic approaches that make important differences in society.

The National Committee for Responsive Philanthopy

NCRP is an independent nonprofit that works to strengthen the nonprofit sector and improve its ability to represent and serve individuals politically, economically, or socially disadvantaged, by promoting greater philanthropic openness and accountability, and responsiveness to these individuals.

Benefice writes: Phil [Cubeta]  and I share an interest in philanthropy, more specifically, in better understanding, promoting, and encouraging effective philanthropy. For several years I have been working quietly with a growing interdisciplinary group of scholars, encouraging them to think more about the role of voluntary action and philanthropy. We have begun with rather big conceptual questions, re-examining the prevailing understanding of philanthropy's role in a free society from the perspective of a variety of academic disciplines. Some of our initial reflections are captured at The Philanthropic Enterprise.

Phil Cubeta hosts a blog called Gift Hub:To create an open space where advisors, givers, and activists for grassroots organizations can meet to discuss ways and means, as well as ends in view.

The Philanthropic Enterprise homepage and publications list: The Philanthropic Enterprise aims to stimulate scholarship and debate on the appropriate roles of voluntary action and philanthropy in a free society.

This isn't a blog, but an innovative use of the Web to link donors with grassroots projects internationally: Global Giving

Comments

[Liz]

oh, I forgot:
ePhilanthopy

[phil]

Given your interest in giving and in positive psychology you might be interested in Tom Munnecke's http://www.givingspace.org. He runs an interesting listserv mailing list.

[Philanthropoid]

Liz--

I should take the blame for Erin's misstatement, since it's in the "About Me" page on my blog that I talk about starting the project because I hadn't found any other blogs about the philanthropic enterprise.

Looking at your (wonderful!) list of sites in this post, I think you and I may simply be coming from different angles on what constitutes a blog. To my mind, the term indicates a deliberate authorial slant/presence that is distinct from a periodical, a newswire, or a professional association. In that sense, Critical Mass is a blog and the Chronicle of Higher Ed isn't; you blog about horses, while the US Equestrian Team site is some other web-genre.

In that understanding, most of the sites you link here are wonderful resources, and resources I happily keep in my bookmarks file, but I don't think of them as blogs. The notable exception to that is Gifthub, which I freely admit I simply had not discovered before I started my own wee writing enterprise. And I am *quite* grateful that your post has led me to find it!

So anyhow, I hope this makes my apparent hubris less vain and more understandable. Thanks for your post, because it has given me a great deal worth thinking about. I hope you won't mind me tracking back and writing further when I do my blog entry tonight.

[liz]

Phil's comment: I know of Tom from the Positive Psychology listserve. And all of Philanthropoid's comments are correct, distinguishing blogs from websites. I do get careless in that regard.