For the whole August, we are fortunate to be sponsored with a summer intern to help us with our 10 year Case Study Project. With a background in Communications, Scott spends his precious summer time with SVP before he goes and pursues a dream of creative design in Vancouver Film School in September.

Continuing from Diana’s volunteer work last summer, Scott gathers all the compiled raw data on each of SVP’s Investees and turns them into heartfelt short stories. Along with researching hard copy materials in binders, Scott and I have been conducting several interviews with Executive Directors of our current and graduated Investees and current and past Partners. The goal of these interviews was not only to capture personal stories and experience related to SVP’s impact and philanthropy at large, but also gave us a chance to re-connect with individuals that are part of the success that defines the SVP we know today. It was an eye opening experience and tons of fun! We learned so much about the history of the work and impact on the community and witnessed the outcome of long-term capacity and relationship building and dedication throughout the years.

One interesting thing I realized from chatting with so many people is that there isn’t really a formula to embracing philanthropy in one’s life. There were so many different kinds of involvement, emotions, motivations and styles of philanthropy – it’s a personal thing! And I think that’s the beauty of philanthropy because you can define it however you’d like and embrace it in your own lifestyle.

Just before Scott departs to Vancouver he came to me and thanked me for the opportunity for him to be involved with SVP and that he enjoyed the experience and learned so much about the industry. Then he said,

“I want to give back to SVP…and do something good for the community. I never really understood the real meaning of philanthropy but I see nonprofits and giving in a different way now and I really appreciate SVP for the amazing opportunity.”

I was speechless. There I was, with a short speech in mind, wanting to thank him for all his time and effort helping us with the Case Studies and bam – he totally stumbled me with his generosity and humbling thoughts. It took me about 30 seconds to come up with a proper sentence other than “wow, my goodness, thank you!”

His gratitude and action was huge and heavy in terms of the meaning and sincerity behind it. It is this kind of experience that makes me appreciate my daily work even more. How lucky I am to be able to offer my time and expertise to help the world become a better place and help others to understand what it means to give back to the community.

It is with great honour and pleasure that I’ve been entrusted with managing this project. I can’t wait to share with you what we have learned and captured with our 10 Year Case Study Project, so stay tuned

In my opinion, the Giving Pledge really brings philanthropy back to the place that we were at pre-recession.  Thinking back to the hey day of 2006, when Buffet pledged his wealth to the Gates Foundation, & we began living in the 2nd golden age of philanthropy.  (Arguably, this began earlier, but Buffett really took it to another level.)

With the Giving Pledge, we are back.  Donors with wealth, too sizable to really imagine, are committing to giving half of it away.  This is meaningful.  In speaking with a friend in advertising, this makes the actual act of philanthropy something that folks have to have, have to be a part of.  Branding philanthropy, the act itself, is in stark contrast to buying a t-shirt that you have to have – even if the proceeds go to a philanthropic purpose.

The challenge to the Pledge and its impact is that it is still one-sided and small-scale.   It addresses the donor-side and a only small percentage of donors.

My first comments to the bloggers posting on this topic were “Great!  And what are we going to do with this sudden influx of money?”  (“We” being the sector.)  I wasn’t overly keen by the simple or non-responses, “The Pledge doesn’t deal with how the money gets dispersed.”    Right, I understand that, but that’s not good enough.  That is only half of the answer.

It’s only been in the past few weeks that folks have started answering the questions on my mind:

Hey, philanthropy are we going to make sure we’re ready for an influx of cash?  Are the non-profits going to be ready?  Is the money going to be given effectively?  Or in ten years, are we going to say – where’d it all go?  What actually changed?  What did we solve?

In my mind, these questions are the ones that complete the circle.  We’ve asked the donors for their accountability, or at least for a Pledge.  Now, what Pledge are we asking from the sector?

Boldly, I think we’re asking for systems changes – or moving more rapidly in areas that are currently in development (i.e. evaluation, collaboration, impact, social enterprise).   If we are going to have big money, something we keep saying we want, what exactly are we going to do with it?

And that brings me to my final thoughts…us.   Does this even have applicability for folks like us?  Absolutely.   I don’t have a billion dollars, not even close – so you can imagine the look my finance husband gave me when I said, “what if we gave a half of it away?” And more realistically, “What if we were giving 1% away per year?” (Written about here.)

Is that a latte a week?  A Coach handbag?  A two week vacation?  A plasma TV?  A new RV?

As a Partner in SVP Calgary, you are already taking a step.   I challenge you to take it further.  What would an individual Pledge mean for how you live your life?   What would it mean for how you engage in your community?

Ask this question at your next dinner table, what would it take to give half of your wealth away?  More interestingly, where can you be involved to see that your wealth is distributed in a meaningful way?    Or are you just going to throw it up in the air and hope it lands somewhere good?

I’m happy because people are starting to recognize the importance of passing down these values and implication of philanthropy on a wider and sophisticated level. I’ve observed the perception of philanthropy usually on the two ends of the spectrum – either too simplistic seeing it as just rich folks giving away money, or completely avoiding it and deferring to a donor advised fund without really understanding why they are contributing. Elenore Garton, a senior researcher at the Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy at Brandeis Univeristy, describes the first kind of situation well:

“People tend to think, ‘Philanthropy: that’s easy. You have a lot of money, and you give it away’. But to do philanthropy well, you have to understand social problems and what is at the root of them, you have to be able to take in a lot of information and evaluate what an organisation is doing and you have to make hard choices. Donors have a lot of challenges and I want students to understand their perspective,”

Examining philanthropy from different angles and perspectives, most of these courses involve lectures and readings on the history of philanthropy, issues in the grant-making process and concerns in philanthropy and public policy. I am also thrilled to read that these courses are gradually attracting students majoring in general business management other than non-profit studies. As philanthropy has evolved and morphed through the decades, branches of it have extended across sectors and disciplines and it’s about time that we recognize its impact on our society and understand it outside the box in a critical and analytical way!

Courtesy of the WayBack machine, take a look at SVP Calgary’s website through the years!

Monitor sets out a beautiful framework, as all very gifted and thoughtful consulting agencies should and sometimes do.  Their graphic on “acting bigger” and “adapting better” certainly makes sense as philanthropy moves into a more evaluated, networked, transparent, and collaborative mode.   How funders work with governments and the public will certainly be of interest moving forward.  Whether interventions produce results will continue to refine strategies.  Hearing directly from the field will enhance top-down decision making.

The “creative tensions” that exist within philanthropy as we know it today are well articulated.  Urgency vs. patience.  Autonomy vs. collaboration.   Rigor vs. risks.  My only critique of the actual document is based on what I see as the core tension of Monitor’s thesis – acting bigger is exactly the thing that will make it difficult to adapt better.  More folks, more interests at the table = harder to shift, change, and be flexible.

What’s fascinating yet challenging to me is much of the thought in philanthropy is driven from an organizational communication/behavior lens.  This lens is absolutely valuable in that it examines behavior and management within complex organizations, and philanthropy is made of people and organizations.   Using this lens we gain insight into the role of funders, relationships between different interest groups, practical measures for improving our daily work, etc.

The organizational behavior allows us room to wiggle in our understanding of philanthropy, but only to a point – as is the case with any lens or world view.   If I was to stop and answer Bob’s question from this lens,  I’d say that Monitor needs to go further in their “what’s next”.  That their actual scope of philanthropy is still too narrow, still using current constructs of funders and beneficiaries.   Rather, from this lens, I’m much more onside with Dan Palotta’s work in Uncharitable for the fact that he gets us to “what’s next” by asking the question of “why we are here”.

The framework that Pallotta uses asks us to first understand where our culture of philanthropy began – Puritanism, in his view – and then challenges us to move further along the organizational behavior spectrum to understand the connection between how we expect nonprofits to run and why social issues continue to exist.  It’s in this space that we are able to examine the concepts and practices of the “socials”: enterprise, entrepreneurship, finance and business.

The Monitor report states that the status quo is not an option, and perhaps, from an organizational behavior standpoint we really can “act bigger” and “adapt better”.  But changing the status quo depends largely on the lens you are using to understand the status quo.   For purposes of really answering Bob’s question, I want to shift our lens of philanthropy a degree or two – just over to a sociological or anthropological view.  It’s an important shift because we’ll end up viewing a concept in a completely new light.

For example, take the concept of entrepreneurship.   From an organizational/business perspective entrepreneurship is a form of work.  However, move over to sociology and you’ll find folks who will tell you its leisure  (serious leisure, though vs. casual leisure).   If we do this same shift with the concept of philanthropy, we might find ourselves less willing to abandon our status quo – though it could do us more good if we did.

Steven Feierman writes[1],

“…philanthropy’s forms are inextricably wedded to the particular forms of dominance and privilege in each historical time and historical place.” (p. 21)

Philanthropy, as we envision it in a Western society and market system, is a desire by successful entrepreneurs to “give back.”[2] In the system that we’ve created, it is a generous and honorable action.  And the successes of philanthropy are well documented, where would we be without Carnegie’s gift of libraries and Rockefellers’ commitment to medical research?

Attempting not to advocate for a different economic system, I don’t think you play by one set of rules on one side of the line and then suddenly want another set for the other side.  (The line being the “profit” line.)  If your economic system is set up to enhance individual actions and reward comparative advantage – then you can’t just say, “well, but our philanthropic/social issues mechanism should be collective & coordinated, based on donations & voluntary, and done for the good of the whole community.”

Under our Western and market system, I struggle to understand why we’re pushing nonprofits and philanthropy to work in a way that we haven’t designed them (organizationally or culturally) to do so.  Western society (generally, North America/Europe), in the study of intercultural communications, values self-realization as our primary goal, advocates people as unique & separate entities, and admires personal success.  We’re not known for valuing group membership, defining ourselves in relation to others, or celebrating a group’s success the same as personal success.  On some level, don’t we actually attribute the success of the West to these characteristics?

To provide one example that would really challenge our true status quo, John Grim writes about aboriginal traditions of the “lifeway”.  Lifeway describes the intrinsic interaction of both world view and economy – the full interaction of the human, spiritual, and material spaces in society.  When speaking of community or philanthropy in this perspective, there is no separate term for “the public good”.  Rather, voluntary service and sharing is not separate from the communal life or lifeway[3].   I think I’ve accidentally hit on this sentiment when I’ve said “philanthropy is a lifestyle.”

Monitor is quite right in their assessment,

“Without rethinking incentive systems that guide behavior, change in philanthropy will likely remain elusive.”

I would argue that we’ve got to know which incentive system we’re talking about and for what kind of change we’re hoping.  “What’s next” for me means that advances in organizational behavior theory won’t get us all of the way there.  At some point we’ll need to ask ourselves, if we are to change the status quo in philanthropy, what does that mean for changing the status quo the way we run our society?

And more importantly and most difficult, from this lens, do we actually want to change the status quo?

(I’ve got more work to do on my thinking, but it’s a direction I enjoy.  Bob, I know this is nothing that you expected, but then I hope you quite enjoy that!)

Shared by Carol B., Lead Partner for Calgary Youth Justice

When I first started on the Investment Committee, we invited a group who was starting up a Homeless Soccer program in conjunction with the Drop In Centre to do a presentation.  Unfortunately, the group was not a recognized charity – so we were unable to provide them funding.

Still,  the Committee was moved by the cause and to help them out SVP sponsored the showing of a film they made about their trip to the World Cup of Homeless Soccer at the Plaza theatre downtown.   I was very impressed and also helped them to host the National Championships in Calgary.   Teams from Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver participated and a National Team was selected from the participants to attend the World Cup in South Africa in 2008.

This year the National Championships are being held in Vancouver and from there the team to represent Canada in the World Cup of Homeless Soccer 2010 will be selected.

Since SVP was involved with this group at the beginning, I thought it might be nice to give our members an update on what is happening.   I thought we may have Partners who avid soccer enthusiasts and see the benefit of this type of program.

I have attached a write up created by Kevin Scullion, the coach and organizer for the Calgary Homeless Soccer Society and a picture of the current Calgary players.  Also, if anyone is interested in helping out (attending practices, donating used soccer balls, uniforms, equipment, or money) they can contact Kevin or me.

For Partners interested in more information, please contact Michele for Carol & Kevin’s contacts.  Additionally, further information on the Homeless World Cup event is provided here.

Ming has written recent posts on the work that the Investment Committee did throughout the course of 2009 and 2010.  When she and I first began this process in September, I remember we looked at one another and thought, how do we go about doing this?  And now, with the support of Scott, the Committee, and the Lead Partners – here we are, 10 months later, and voila – a new SVP Investee.

For those unable to join us yesterday, we’ll be bringing you more information & opportunities to acquaint yourselves with AAFS and with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).   AAFS began in 2004, with seven families, and with the intention of providing social and recreational programs for the ASD community.  Six years later, they are serving over 200 families in the Calgary and working with children and families affected by ASD.

There are so many activities that we take for granted on a daily basis.  Who taught you to camp?  How did you learn to date?  When did you learn how to cook?  AAFS works with the families and their children to devise activities that fit their clients’ needs – right now.  From leadership groups and drama programs to sexual education and mentorship, AAFS is providing programming that builds social, life, and communication skills for all of their clients.

AAFS is a perfect fit with the SVP Calgary Investment portfolio.  Beyond their scope of working with youth & education, AAFS reflects similar core values of our other Investees – developing practical, timely, and adaptive solutions to the issues.  Like our other Investees, AAFS programming is poised for growth and great success – and that is why the SVP Investment Committee choose AAFS from among the many applicants.

Dean Svoboda, Executive Director, began AAFS back in 2004, and has grown with the organization.  The resources that SVP Calgary will initially provide will help build out the staffing needs of the organization – moving Dean’s load from Office Manager to Executive Director.  Additionally, much of the assistance that AAFS has requested comes in the form of increasing training for volunteers, staff, and Board.  SVP’s Investment Committee saw an amazing opportunity to work with a strong and committed group of people – and at the same time, help to strengthen the organization for their future.

We’re thrilled by the strength of AAFS’s team – staff, Board, and families – and look forward to building our relationship.   SVP Calgary will be looking for a Lead Partner for AAFS.  This role is not about being an expert on Autism, but really about falling in love with the work of the organization & the team behind it.  I encourage you to consider this opportunity.

Please join Ming & myself in welcoming AAFS to the SVP Calgary family.

Just last week, we asked the staff at the SVP international network of 26 affiliates to take an informal survey on volunteer management. One of the questions we asked was what are the top three reasons preventing people from volunteering and the outcome was consistent (not surprising) that many SVP Partners (who are high skill volunteers) across the continent simply don’t have enough time, even if they are interested and intend to help!

Although this is not a new concept, it got me thinking – how can we make giving, volunteering, contributing back to your community top of the priority list amongest family, work, and exercise? Is it a matter of marketing and making certain issues closer to people’s emotions and personal lives so that more would take action? Or is it a major cultural shift that requires a mass movement changing people’s way of thinking? How can we help people decide how to use their precious and valuable time?

Our SVP Give event at Eau Claire tomorrow also inspired another thought – giving can be in many forms, not just money, but also measured in time. Is it to give your time to read an article and understand what is going on in your community? Or perhaps it is to take a couple of hours to bring out your family on a run for breast cancer? Or is it to take a summer to build a website for a nonprofit?

Would you spare an hour of your lunch time to come out and show your support for the hardworking impactful local nonprofits, to hear their stories, and decide for yourself how you can get more involved?

Remembering when we first started gearing up for the Investment Committee last summer (after a whole year of not taking on new granting), I’d be lying if I say I wasn’t nervous about how to make it work. We kicked off the fall with orientations and learning about the concerns and trends in the community. From the logistics of getting a group of interested Partners together, to inviting experts/speakers to our Get Smart sessions, to narrowing down to a more focused funding area and statement, we learned about various social issues in our community.

It wasn’t until after 29 LOI applications came in January did we realize that our work actually begins here. In the midst of trying to understand the work and structure of each applicant, battling between the passion, good work, and the needs of the organizations versus choosing the best fit with SVP’s resources, it was heartbreaking and extremely difficult when we had to pick some over others. While we examined the big pictures of how the applicants fit into the whole social and economical ecosystem, we also needed to take into consideration of various factors such as personalities, connections, and potential impact of our partnership with the agencies.

However, it’s not to say that we didn’t have fun during this whole selection process! We got to go on site visits witnessing the great work that these organizations do. We got to meet some wonderful people who bring hope to our community. We’ve had some heated discussions, and of course, coming to an conclusion in the end that every Committee member feels confident and excited about!

This post is not to show off how much work we’ve done nor is it to pat ourselves on the back for our accomplishments in the light of all the awesome work of nonprofit organizations out there. This post is to say that it was definitely not easy to choose a new Investee. It was definitely not simple to determine where our funding and resources could make the most impact and help build the capacity of an organization and our community at large.

Curious? Well, you’ll have to join us at Social Venture Partners Give - noon time on Tues, June 29 at Eau Claire Market – to find out who’s our newest Investee!

As I started down the path, I realized that my “ask” didn’t push the needle far enough.  In fact, I’d argue that we’re pretty lucky to have as many incentives to give as we do. 

Instead of philanthropy, I set my sights on social enterprise.  And over the six month course, I found myself immersed in the legal and regulatory frameworks of for-profits, non-profits and charitable organizations.  Oddly, I loved this depth of information.   My ask evolved into encouraging the Alberta government to create a regulatory structure for social enterprise.

Now, I can go WAY into details of the legal and regulatory merits and challenges of this idea.   And I can tell you who is on side and who isn’t.  I can even tell you about how Canadian federal/provincial dynamics might hinder my Utopian vision.   I won’t right now.  But you can see, I became entranced by the topic. 

And now, happily, I can’t get out.

The crux of writing this blog was to say – social enterprise will take 360 degree thinking.  There are folks, from all perspectives, who will tell you one thing or another.  They will disagree with your definition of social enterprise.  They will approach it from another vantage point.  They will squint their eyes at your crazy notions of nonprofits making money.

For simplicity (and I like simplicity): 

social enterprise is for-profit (or commercial) activity for community (society) benefit. 

(I’m happy to have folks disagree with me.)

Regardless of what you know about social enterprise, the most exciting part is the journey of the thought process.  No longer does our thinking live in for-profit / non-profit silos.  No longer do we just “donate”.  No longer can we point the finger and blame someone else – for the fact that social issues continue to persist.

Instead, social enterprise thinking takes 360 degrees.  You need your financial mind, your MBA, your legal eagle, your engineer, your designer and (most important) your human service folks to say, “hey, great profit idea, crappy social intervention.”  The 360 degrees is why it is so much fun.  I would argue that the process might be more fun than the actual result.

In a nutshell, that’s how I came into the world of s.e. & why I persist in this space.  You’ll hear lots of opinions – and increasingly so – on the merits and challenges of the idea.  In the end, you’ll make your mind up for yourself. 

And in the process, I challenge you to ask, “How will I contribute to this 360 degree thinking?”