Reconstructing Philanthropy from the Outside In
Submitted by Steve on February 5, 2015
By Paul Shoemaker, writing for Stanford Social Innovation Review:
The Empire State Building is one of the seven modern wonders of the world. Yet when it was built, the most revolutionary aspect wasn’t its architecture or the height. The less-acclaimed, quantum leap was in the construction practices that the contractor, Starrett Brothers and Eken, used. Never before had a building been constructed in that way or as quickly. In philanthropy today, we are doing some good “architectural” work in emergent philanthropy, networks, and collective impact, to name a few.
But to achieve a breakthrough like the Empire State Building, we need to fundamentally change the underlying practices we use to construct our philanthropy, just as radically as Starrett Brothers and Eken did.