There is no going back to a less complex and varied time in philanthropy—or in the world. The new context can make the resulting choices seem more difficult than ever. What may be less obvious, but more important, is that every individual donor and professional funder also has many new opportunities.
- The final section of Looking Out for the Future, Choosing Your Path, offers four principles that together create a framework for making decisions within the new ecology: exploit philanthropy’s strategic advantage, seek cooperate advantage, embrace complexity and invite meaningful scrutiny. It also includes exercises to apply to your own philanthropy, and resources for further learning.
- It’s worth stressing that You Don’t Have to Be Big or Rich to have an impact. The key is to essentially "outsource" the strategic work of giving by tapping knowledge and networks that amplify your own. Our Tour of Innovation has many examples of ways to do just that.
- We have pulled out the tools from "Choosing Your Path," so you can use them as standalone exercises:
- Mapping Your Giving is a simple and quick way to categorize your gifts. In this way you will reveal your priorities, and make it easier to change them if you choose.
- Creating Your Own Scenarios provides a simple matrix you can use to explore four different futures that could evolve in the U.S. in the coming years. If you are clear about your funding priorities, you can use this tool to anticipate what you and the organizations you support might be called upon to do differently in the future.
- Putting All the Pieces Together is a template designed to help you apply many of the ideas discussed in Looking Out for the Future to a specific problem or opportunity you are interested in. It aims to help you see how you might re-envision your philanthropic efforts when you put the problem, rather than yourself or an institution, at the center of your thinking. Take this template to your favorite local copy center and ask them to reproduce it on oversized paper, and fill it out on your own or with your staff, your family—or a group of other interested givers.
- Until very recently, there were relatively few guides for those who wanted to learn more about philanthropy. That has now changed dramatically. Here are a few of the Resources we have found most useful.
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