RE: Philanthropy 2.0: Problem or solution? –by Glenn Ashton -RSN March 24, 2013

When it comes to “killing the world”, it is true that those with the discretionary power and resources to re-direct that philanthropic impact path APPEAR to have little incentive, track record or credibility to do so.

Practical charitable innovations toward enduring solutions are not sought out, nor are they funded in spite of traditional, habitually funded initiatives.

Nevertheless, there is a lot of discretionary resource out there in the hands of forward-desiring philanthropists, who if they knew better, could just as easily change their directions as to stick to the traditional, familiar and easier decision and funding paths. For many citable reasons, leadership in the philanthropic and charitable sectors rarely guide philanthropic actions down non-traditional solution paths.

The state-of-practice is that “knowable” is easier to fund and maintain –which comes at the costs of finding and funding meaningful and lasting impacts from actual new solutions. However, just because the philanthropic momentum seems to be increasing in directions at crossed purposes with new solutions does not mean new solutions and those who can fund them will never unite.

It would be a grave injustice to believe that the system and momentum that is philanthropy today irreversibly restricts the potential toward enduring, effective legacies for new, and lasting solutions.

There is a philanthropic hunger out there for the extreme vanguards of innovation, which philanthropy today so effectively and unknowingly filters out. They never see amazing, preempting impact initiatives and rarely fund the new and brave. They cannot fund what they do not know, and only they can buck the system to actively seek out the best new practices. Ironically, many of the philanthropists gained their wealth through the same attributes of risk-for-the-right-idea that the best new charities represent.

If you want to start un-“killing this world”, actively seek and fund extreme innovation in social solutions. If you do, frustrated, hungry, legacy-minded philanthropists will flood out of the woodwork -as if to oxygen. Never sell short their potential to fund great, meaningful new impact, when simply at this point in time, their “state-of-the-art” practices and guides have lost their ability to find stunning innovation.

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