Adventures in New Giving

I am super excited to see Adventures in New Giving http://www.adventuresinnewgiving.com/. And perhaps a bit jealous. If I could focus the time and energy, I think Nathaniel is doing what I would do. (see his video here: http://vimeo.com/37718193 ) For years, I have lived a double life working in traditional progressive philanthropy to pay rent while working on bootstrappy social enterprise as a passion. In my consulting work within traditional philanthropy, we talked about the democratization of philanthropy. However, I did not see much of it in practice.
That seems to have come from somewhere else. Tech start-ups culture maybe? Socent pragmatism? Microfinancing brought home? Whatever the path, it has been interesting to watch the birth of efforts like kickstarter and startsomegood.

It seems aligned, naturally, somehow with the collaborative consumption “Mesh” culture.  All of which seem part of a larger movement toward network production. So I am super excited to see Nathaniel capture the stories of this practical democratization of philanthropy.

I am also curious to see how this will hybridize with traditional philanthropy. I have visions of foundations and philanthropists using crowdfunding as part of their due diligence. Something of an early market testing and reliability assessment before or as part of larger funding efforts. Picture a foundation giving a matching grant – matched via startsomegood. This could be really a good time saver for family foundations with intentions to give and little time for sorting through applications.

I can’t wait to see what Nathaniel does with Adventures in New Giving.

I can’t wait to see how we all play together in evolving new giving.

To help fund our awareness of ourselves in this evolution, pitch in at

http://startsomegood.com/Venture/adventures_in_new_giving/Campaigns/Show/adventures_in_new_giving

4 replies
  1. tomjd
    tomjd says:

    Great post Jean, thanks for sharing the campaign.

    I particularly liked this paragraph:
    “I am also curious to see how this will hybridize with traditional philanthropy. I have visions of foundations and philanthropists using crowdfunding as part of their due diligence. Something of an early market testing and reliability assessment before or as part of larger funding efforts. Picture a foundation giving a matching grant – matched via startsomegood. This could be really a good time saver for family foundations with intentions to give and little time for sorting through applications.”

    I have been thinking this exact same thing. Many family foundations don’t have the time or inclination to process applications, which can cut them off from new ideas and possibilities. Instead, once we achieve a sufficient volume of campaigns on the site, they could use sorting tools to identify those which fit their areas of focus and criteria and help accelerate their campaigns with their donations, or match them upon success. I’d love to talk with you sometime about how we might make this happen.

    Cheers!

    Tom

  2. Shaula
    Shaula says:

    Hi Jean! Fancy finding you – I just met Nathaniel yesterday here at Hub Seattle and I was searching him up again to check out his site. I will be in SF at the same time as you, I’ll email about a time to connect.

    Shaula

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  1. […] Adventurer Jean Russell wrote this sharp, perceptive post about the project.  I couldn’t wait to share it with all New Giving […]

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