PhilanTopic is now part of the Candid blog

Since 2007, Philanthropy News Digest’s blog, PhilanTopic, has been a “platform for a broad range of opinion and commentary from foundation staff, nonprofit practitioners, and those who simply enjoy a good debate.” After 15 years—and more than 3,000 posts—we are excited to bring that conversation to an even wider audience as part of the Candid blog.

On the Candid blog you will find news, insights, and practical wisdom, along with updates about Candid, our products, and services.

We remain committed to delivering the breadth, depth, and perspective you have come to expect from PhilanTopic.  Philanthropy News Digest will continue to publish Commentary and Opinion pieces as well as articles in our columns, The Sustainable Nonprofit and Career Insights, as well as interviews, book reviews, and our daily editors’ picks of the top news.

Visit the Candid blog for a wide-ranging conversation covering Tips & Training, Trends & Issues, and Data & Insights.

Closing the digital divide: A commentary by Christopher Worman

An unlikely hero of the COVID-19 pandemic? The parking lot. Sitting in cars by shuttered schools, fast food restaurants, and libraries across America, children without internet at home were able to connect to Wi-Fi to access online classes and continue their schooling.

The crisis demonstrated not only the scale of the digital divide that remains across the United States—more than 120 million Americans still don’t use the internet at broadband speeds—but underlined how critical internet access now is to so many of life’s essentials, including health care, remote work, and, of course, education.

To understand how the COVID-19 crisis affected the work of civil society, the nonprofit technology provider TechSoup surveyed its membership and found that, of the nearly 12,000 organizations that responded, four in five said their services were disrupted because their communities lacked internet access....

Read the full commentary by Christopher Worman, co-founder and chief partnership and strategy officer of Connect Humanity.

(Photo credit: Getty Images/SeventyFour)

Review: ‘Benjamin Franklin’s Last Bet’

Philanthropy is about betting on the future. And while certainly not unique to America, American philanthropy has a peculiar and enduring capacity to shape our world and the lives of generations hence. Whether we are supporting disaster relief, refugee resettlement, a community foundation’s scholarship program, or strengthening our alma mater’s endowment, as we engage in philanthropy, we imagine the future lives we are affecting. As Bill Gates once noted in the 1990s, the measure of accomplishment is in the number of lives you can save. Still, few of us would imagine that our philanthropy might reverberate through centuries. Not so, Benjamin Franklin.

In Benjamin Franklin’s Last Bet, Michael Meyer, a professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, illustrates in vivid detail not only how Franklin—printer, statesman, diplomat, inventor of the lighting rod—was present at the creation of so much of early U.S. history, he was equally essential to shaping its philanthropic character across more than two centuries. Franklin was among the founders of the University of Pennsylvania, as well as Philadelphia’s first free library, its fire department, and hospital—a project he launched using, perhaps, the very first matching grant scheme. Long before Elon Musk made his patents for Tesla Motors open source, Franklin never sought licenses or patents for his inventions—which also included bifocals, the Franklin stove, and improvements to the odometer and the rocking chair—instead viewing their use and dissemination as a public good. He was also the progenitor of what today we call microfinance....

Read the full book review by Daniel X Matz, contributing editor at Philanthropy News Digest.

Shift power to Black-led change: A commentary by Chera Reid and Lulete Mola

The uprising for racial justice that was ignited by the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police still reverberates today. Notably, people with power and wealth seemingly took note, with institutions, companies, and organizations vowing to change and allocate more resources to advancing racial equity and justice. Many foundations made a two-part commitment: to direct more resources to racial equity and justice initiatives and to center Black voices in their efforts.

But Black Philanthropy Month and the 2022 theme of the “Fierce Equity of Now! From Dream to Action” is a higher calling of philanthropy and a sober reminder that philanthropy still has a long way to go. The sector as a whole has not yet made significant progress on these goals. To attain the stated aims of racial equity and justice, philanthropy must follow through on the second part of its commitment and shift power to Black-led change.

This path forward includes social, economic, and political change led by diverse groups of Black people centering the power, interests, and well-being of Black communities that often benefits all communities....

Read the full commentary by Chera Reid and Lulete Mola, co-executive director of the Center for Evaluation Innovation and co-founder and first president of the MN Black Collective Foundation, respectively.

(Photo credit: James Eades via unsplash)

Review: 'How to Prevent the Next Pandemic'

If only I led a government or a nongovernmental organization, then maybe I would be cheering with the same unabashed optimism that Bill Gates reveals in his passionate book about the world’s preparedness—or lack thereof—to prevent the next pandemic. As a private citizen, I am left worried about the world’s ability to move the needle on thwarting the spread of viruses as they arise, especially given the wave after wave of COVID-19 variants, the introduction of monkeypox into our collective viral lexicon, and the resurgence of polio. In short, there is cause for concern.

Indeed, in his 304-page tome, How to Prevent the Next Pandemic, Gates first details how the response to the COVID-19 outbreak was middling at best and could have been exponentially worse. He states matter-of-factly that despite people raising the alarm for decades about novel diseases that could kill millions, the world didn’t respond with sufficient urgency. There wasn’t enough investment in the tools needed to prepare for a pandemic properly, i.e., nations were caught flat-footed, militaries weren’t running large-scale drills, and city, state, and federal governments had no practice outside of natural disasters to combat the spread of a deadly virus like COVID-19....

Read the full book review by Lauren Brathwaite, content editor at Philanthropy News Digest.

 

 

Stop false narratives that sow division and bias: A commentary by Fred Blackwell

The last few weeks, as monkeypox cases continue to rise, I’ve been noticing a disturbing trend start to resurface. The fearmongering we’ve seen targeted at the LGBTQIA+ community around this virus—I have to say, it feels like Groundhog Day. I’m back in the ’80s, when gay men were vilified during the AIDS crisis. I’m back in 2001, when Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian Americans were blamed for the attacks of September 11. I’m back in 2020, when the president called a global pandemic the “China virus,” and violence against Asian Americans skyrocketed.

We cannot—we will not—do this yet again. We’ve got to stop these false narratives that sow division and bias.

I wish everyone suffering from monkeypox a full and speedy recovery. Like many others, I’m angered by the slow public health response to this outbreak and disappointed that—in addition to a painful illness—many affected by this virus are also facing fearmongering and stigmatization...

Read the full commentary by Fred Blackwell, CEO of San Francisco Foundation.

(Photo credit: Getty Images/gmast3r)

The sustainable nonprofit: Addressing challenges in leadership recruitment and retention

While serving constituents in need has always been challenging, today’s food banks face a new post-pandemic and rapidly shifting socio-economic landscape that is impacting how they recruit and retain leadership. We need to consider fresh strategies that food bank executives can leverage in addressing challenges in leadership recruitment and retention.

The impact of social and economic change

Low-income and at-risk populations—those served by food banks—were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. This increased pressure on food banks, which saw a55 percent spike in demand in the first year of the pandemic. At the end of 2021, one in six adults still relied on charitable food and, as of this summer, food banks across the country are seeing growing lines as inflation impacts households. Against this backdrop, recruiters must consider specific internal and external obstacles when it comes to finding and retaining leadership....

Read the full column article by Derrick Chubbs and Janet Albert, president and CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida and a partner and U.S. nonprofit lead at executive search firm Bridge Partners, respectively.

(Photo credit: nico-smit via unsplash)

Parental involvement in decision making is key to ending the cycle of poverty: A commentary by Anne Mosle

There is an essential ingredient that gives us a real shot at ending the cycle of poverty forever: parents. It is an election year, and we will hear a lot about “doing right by our families,” but one of the best ways we can do right by families is to honor their lived experience by valuing their expertise. That message was at the heart of our Parent Power panel at the 2022 Aspen Ideas Festival: We can all benefit by engaging parents as partners as we design programs meant to keep children and families on a path to prosperity.

Parental involvement in decision making is the key to advancing policies and programs that support families’ strengths and needs.

For example, Connecticut’s Office of Early Childhood now has a Parent Cabinet that started with a manifesto stating: “To ensure that all children have equitable outcomes in education, health, and life, we must view engaging parents and developing their leadership as ‘Mission Critical.’” Colorado’s Department of Human Services has put this into practice with their Family Voice Council in which “[m]embers share their honest experiences and provide feedback as a guide for the future.” The Washington State Department of Children, Youth & Families (DCYF) listens to a Parent Advisory Group which serves as a “sounding board for decisions, ideas and questions that shape the future of DCYF.”

For the past 10 years, Ascend at the Aspen Institute has worked with leaders in these states—as well as across all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico—to move the idea of centering parent voices and lived expertise from the exception to the rule. The next step for nonprofits and philanthropies is to help more policymakers embrace these three core ideas:

Read the full commentary by Anne Mosle, a vice president of the Aspen Institute, executive director of Ascend at the Aspen Institute, and co-chair of the Aspen Institute Forum on Women and Girls.

(Photo credit: Getty Images)