thepoint

NY Tech Meetup, The Future of Organizing

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Peter Deitz, Social Actions (NY Tech Meetup)
Social Actions at the NY Tech MeetupLast night, the NY Tech Meetup hosted a conversation with 6 social action practitioners (myself included) about the future of organizing.

Presenters included: Jordan Goldberg (Stickk.com), Jesse Richards (MeetUp), Paul Miller (School of Everything), Andrew Mason (ThePoint), Clay Shirky (Here Comes Everybody), and myself.

For notes from each presentation, see Sanford Dickert's live blogging of the event. A big thank you to Scott Heiferman and Dawn Barber for organizing the event and inviting me to speak.

I used my time to provide an overview of the peer-to-peer social change field, quickly demo Social Actions, and then make a pitch for my proposal on the NetSquared Mashup Challenge.

I have audio from the event, and will spend tomorrow preparing the archived presentations and subsequent Q&A.

Update 3/12/08: I have uploaded the presentations to my profile on Blip.TV.

In the meantime, here are the slides from my presentation.

Note: The third slide of this presentation didn't convert well to the SlideShare format. It should read: 29+ social action platforms, each with its own: User base, Facbeook app, Tag cloud, Reputation system, Widget system, Payment method, and Fee structure

Author:
Peter Deitz

Crowdsourced Philanthropy, Powered by ThePoint.com

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GiftHub is reporting that ThePoint.com will soon offer a service that helps philanthropists crowdsource their grantmaking.

Here's how ThePoint describes their new program:

Weʼve seen the power of crowdsourcing through sites like Wikipedia. Now, The Point brings the wisdom of crowds to philanthropy. Through this new program, The Point helps philanthropists make an impact by using The Pointʼs member base to “outsource” the time-intensive process of distributing funds.

Limitations of time and resources usually prevent one person from determining the most effective way to distribute their donation. Organizations have arisen to help manage that process, serving as middlemen between philanthropists and those in need. But such organizations have their own costs, and by the time the money reaches its destination, thereʼs often far less of it than there was in the beginning.

But phenomena like predictive markets have shown that groups are far more adept than experts at making certain kinds of decisions, decisions like, “how can my money get the most bang per buck?”

Instead of an individual donor giving a large sum of money to an organization, The Point puts thousands of individuals in control of small increments of your donation, who will distribute it to the causes that matter, filling the cracks of our national prosperity. By enlisting thousands of individuals in the micro-distribution of funds, The Point brings an unprecedented precision to charitable giving.

...

We view the present initiative as an experiment in crowdsourced philanthropy. The amount of the contribution is flexible and input into the shape and details of the program is welcome..

How it works:

Crowdsourced Philanthropy Diagram

For more information:

Andrew Mason
Founder / CEO, The Point, Inc.
andrew@thepoint.com

Crowdsourced philanthropy is a great idea and an excellent use of ThePoint's social action platform. I can't wait to see if "high net worth individuals" get excited about the idea.

Questions for Andrew:

  • Will ThePoint.com members be able to donate to the grants they like?
  • Will nonprofits be able to propose grants for themselves and then recruit support from their existing supporters?
  • Will a philanthropist be able to limit his / her grant to a specific issue or area of location?

 

Kings of Philanthropy and Princes of Micro-Philanthropy

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In July 2007, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) posted two radio documentaries about the philanthropy of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Jeff Skoll, and other billionaires. The recordings originally appeared on a radio program entitled Ideas. The two part series is called "The Kings of Philanthropy" (part i and part ii).

Here's a brief description:

Some have called it the natural fall-out of a hyper-capitalist society; billionaires who've made more money from media and technology enterprises than anyone in human history. There's Bill Gates, the creator of Microsoft; Jeff Skoll, the founder of e-Bay; and, of course, Warren Buffet, who has been dubbed the "Oracle of Omaha." Now, they've reinvented themselves as philanthropists, giving away billions to help the poor. Freelance broadcaster Richard Phinney asks: can they re-make the world?

What's interesting about these podcasts is that they discuss the work of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Jeff Skoll in terms of a generational shift in attitudes toward philanthropy. These billionaires, according to the reporter, represent a new wave of philanthropists, wealthy grant-makers who emphasize transplanted business practices and social entrepreneurship over charitable giving for purely humanitarian relief.

"The Kings of Philanthropy" is an excellent documentary and casts new light on the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in particular. But from my perspective, the philanthropists described in this program (perhaps Jeff Skoll aside) represent an 'older' generation of philanthropy, one in which great wealth is amassed first and distributed later.

"The Princes (and Princesses) of Micro-Philanthropy" are from generation Y. They are the founders of sites like GiveMeaning, DonorsChoose, Change.org, and Project Agape. They write blogs like Tactical Philanthropy. And create mash-ups like the Social Actions search engine. The young people behind these sites have committed themselves to changing the institutions of philanthropy, with or without huge amounts of money, and certainly before reaching middle-age.

Next time the CBC does an investigative report on new trends in philanthropy, I think they should look to the off-spring of Boomers. That's where they'll find the greatest generational shift in attitudes toward philanthropy.

Here are some leads:

As far as I know, everyone listed above is under 30, and often well-under 30.

A moment ago I referred to them as the The Princes (and Princesses) of Micro-Philanthropy. But come to think of it, since the aim is to democratize philanthropy, I should abandon feudal language altogether.

If you know of other young people using the web to democratize philanthropy, please post their names and projects below.

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