The Chinese will tell you that bamboo is resilient, its root systems self-propagating, and its form reflective of local conditions. Among the hardiest plants, producing the most durable woods, the strength of bamboo comes from its flexibility. Once planted it is difficult to suppress.

The Global Philanthropy...

We often refer to the debt we owe to Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller for translating their charitable impulse into organized philanthropy, providing the model for the many foundations that have since emerged. But perhaps more important than the institutions they built was the questioning ethos they instilled. Both...

Sunday's New York Times article on Google.org caught my attention. The Times is one of the few daily papers that cover the philanthropic sector, and it does so with the same seriousness it applies to developments in business and government. It is attentive to new philanthropic models that...

In their rush to gain an end of the year tax deal, elected leaders postponed hard choices. In the process, they denied the government the revenues it needs to either respond to unforeseen crises or deliver on promises made.

At the same time, wary corporate decision-makers...

Over the past few days, the New York Times has offered a telling glimpse into the varied nature of the nonprofit sector and the ways in which it touches our lives -- from day-to-day services to public policy. The Times coverage also offers insight into our shared instinct to preserve...

"The best boost for our nation's civic health is to ensure all children graduate from high school and complete college," according to the 2010 Civic Health Assessment. Educational attainment is the greatest predictor of future civic engagement, this National Conference on Citizenship (NCoC) report finds.

With that, this...

Thanks to a decades-long focus on improving access to college, nearly seven in ten Americans today enroll in some form of postsecondary education within two years of leaving high school. That's a record number, and it is impressive. But it also obscures another reality. Lurking in the shadows is a...

"Social media powers social networks for social change."

Beth Kanter and Allison Fine offer that thesis in The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive Change. They argue that transformation can result from online technologies, including social networking sites, blogs and wikis.

In recent weeks,...

Of all the pressing issues confronting the developing world, cancer gets comparatively short shrift. And yet, a majority of new cancer diagnoses come from developing countries.

The fact that these countries are significantly less capable to care for the afflicted than, say, the United States, where cancer has been...

Crowd-sourcing is No. 1 in Mashable.com's "5 Trends Shaping the Future of Social Good." And one prominent nonprofit author/blogger calls it the No. 1 benefit for foundations in making more use of social media.

Have you engaged crowds yet in your grantmaking?

Several foundations are experimenting with...

A century ago, the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission, the precursor to the Rockefeller Foundation, helped eradicate hookworm in the American South. Today, the ClimateWorks Foundation, financed by a funding collaborative, is helping to catalyze measurable reductions in carbon emissions.

What these efforts have in common, according to venture philanthropist Mario Morino,...

Think the debate over health care reform is over? Not a chance -- and not just because Election Day is fast approaching. President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) in late March after nearly a year of debate and deliberation. But the real work is only...

Over the past couple decades, civic engagement and participation have helped to improve governance and outcomes in the developing world.

To think how much more impact civic engagement could have with concrete evidence to bolster claims of efficacy.

In fact, a new British report says such evidence does exist...

Imagine if countries competed with each other to create the best environment in which social innovation can occur. And imagine if social entrepreneurs were actively encouraged and supported in countries around the world.

Two consultative bodies affiliated with the World Economic Forum (WEF) -- its Global Agenda Council on Philanthropy...

Six months after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake ravaged Haiti, much attention has shifted to other needs and other crises elsewhere. But the Caribbean nation is still very much in crisis, and, as the Wall Street Journal reports, there's still too much rubble and too little progress. With a...

In 2008, hundreds of thousands of citizens engaged in the political process, some mobilizing others to vote for the first time. To both describe and recapture that activism, Matt Leighninger of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium has written Creating Spaces for Change: Working Toward A 'Story of Now' In...

Foundation officers often mistakenly seek to apply scientific principles to complex social problems. And, civil society is endangered by an increasing market mentality on the part of new nonprofit leaders, says Stanford University's Bruce Sievers.

Sievers' book, Civil Society, Philanthropy and the Fate of the Commons, offers specific...

Life ain't fair. Foundations pay full value to the for-profit consultants who advise them, but often fail to cover the true costs of the same services when offered by nonprofits. How often have nonprofit leaders been tapped to provide advisory services to a foundation's grantees or skills training for the...

School may be out for the summer, but there's no break for ideas and debate about the best -- and worst -- ways for funders to help fix America's education system. Certainly engaging with policymakers is critical. In a later post, I'll discuss the issue of foundations' increasing interest in...

Did foundations do enough in the economic recession? Clearly, it is too early to say.

But the Philanthropic Collaborative has found reason to crow. Its new preliminary report offers analysis of a limited set of data -- a sample of 2,672 grants totaling $472 million made by foundations...