Tuesday, October 28, 2008

The Future of Philanthropy Down Under

The fine folks at Philanthropy Australia sent me a copy of the opening speech from their recent conference - here is the link from the PhilanthropyOz blog. Besides offering a nice, concise several century history of philanthropy the speech looks to the future. A short list of what they see:
  1. Philanthropy is more than money - it includes time and expertise;
  2. Efforts to measure impact must recognize number one above;
  3. Wealth transfer may matter more than wealth creation;
  4. Corporate social responsibility is likely to continue to offer competitive advantages;
  5. Transparency and information sharing matter significantly; and
  6. Australia can and should look to it Asian neighbors for economic and philanthropic leadership.
The full speech is online here. The more we can collect insights and stories such as these about "wither philanthropy" in these economic times the more we might actually be able to understand what we are going through.



2 comments:

Tony Wang said...

I'm surprised about the bit of looking to Asia for economic and philanthropic leadership. Income inequality in Asia seems to be much greater than it is here in the US (and what I guess would be more than Australia) and philanthropy hasn't been institutionalized very well (the laws in China regarding philanthropy are especially confusing, even for those working in that sector). Personally, I wouldn't look to Asia as an ideal model of either economic growth (since income inequality has increased and the environment has taken a toll for the worse) or philanthropic leadership.

The Social Reformer said...

Social Entrepreneurship is the way..

Ruben Harris
twitter.com/redstarvip