"I’ve always said that when it comes to influencing your children to be charitable, it’s not what you say, it’s what you do. Guess what? I was wrong."

Ellen Remmer of The Philanthropic Initiative just posted this statement above on TPI's blog, Deep Impact. Like Ellen, I've spent years suggesting to clients concerned about their children's philanthropic urges that they should teach by doing. I still think that's a good idea -- I know how my mother's philanthropic activities affected me, even as I sat at the back of the room coloring while she participated in meetings -- but the Women Give 2013 study Ellen sites is fascinating. Ellen wrote: "it found that children whose parents to talk to them about giving are 20% more likely to give than those whose parents don't. And it found that talking actually matters more than role-modeling when it comes to parents influencing their children’s philanthropic behavior."

Well, show and tell, I guess!

—Julia

Don’t you find that all the new philanthropic terms are confusing?  I sure do.  Philanthrocapitalism, tactical philanthropy, strategic philanthropy, etc, etc.  There are Blogs and magazines named with these terms, and their authors are always attempting to define their preferred phrase and why both its concept and the phrase they’ve chosen to describe it is better than another’s.  An easier way to think about approaches to philanthropy was posted by Sean Stannard-Stockton on his Tactical Philanthropy Blog.  

[One philanthropic approach is] focused on creating and sustaining an environment within which great nonprofit organizations can thrive, while …[another] philanthropy funder focuses on developing the initiatives, goals and approaches that they believe are most likely to succeed.

This difference was illustrated extremely well in a Stanford Social Innovation Review post by Amy Sample Ward where she used the difference between gardening and landscaping as an example:

The Gardener creates an ecosystem open to change, available to new groups, and full of fresh opportunities to emerge naturally.  The approach is focused on organic collaboration and growth for the entire community.  The gardener is simply there to help, cultivate, and clear the weeds if/when they poke up.

The Landscaper creates an ecosystem that matches a preconceived design or pattern.  The approach is focused on executing a preconceived environment, regardless of how natural or organic it may be for the larger area.  The landscaper is there to ensure that everything stays just as planned.

Do you fund organizations managed by innovative and creative leaders?  Are you willing to risk your grant dollars on interesting or unusual efforts?  Do you let any and all nonprofits (within your focus area) apply?  Do you encourage collaboration among your grantees and others in the field(s) that interest you?  Then you’re a “gardener.”  (Stannard-Stockton would call you a “tactical philanthropist”.)   

Have you thought deeply about “what works” in your field?  Do you have your goals identified, your approaches chosen, an initiative developed around these goals and approaches, and a portfolio of grantees that fit into those molds?  Then you’re a “landscaper.”   

Neither of these descriptors matter much -- what does matter, though, is that you understand your approach to grantmaking and giving, whether you’re excited to see what self-seeds or prefer to place your flowerpots just so.   ​

—Julia

There has been a lot of controversy about the recent  Barron’s list of the “25 Most Effective Givers”, and a column by Cindy Gibson in The Nonprofit Quarterly gave me something to ponder. I’ve used the terms ‘philanthropy’ and ‘charity’ to indicate different strategies of giving – not to disparage one over the other, since both are needed – but to clarify what I was talking about. Gibson made a simple but convincing argument that charity IS philanthropy.  
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One of the online comments (by Rachel F.) also made a particularly useful point about logic models and their place in helping charity become more effective:

"Logic models meet real needs in real communities every day. Consider this simple model used by soup kitchens everywhere: 

We feed folks in our community who are hungry [action], when & where they are hungry [strategy], so that we meet even a part of this community's day-to-day hunger needs [goal], thus improving the lives of folks in our community as a whole [meta-goal].

Add in relevant performance indicators (Are there more people who are less hungry in our community? Are there people still going hungry day-to-day that we can reach?) and you're working toward real effectiveness."

Charity is not only of value but can be effective. I’ll attempt not to use the word in a way that infers that ‘charity’ is something less-than philanthropy in the future.

—Julia