Philanthropy and Politics: What can they learn from each other?

• Posted by Lucy Bernholz
• On October 31, 2008


• Interests: Politics and Governance

For a long time business has been the most discussed analog for nonprofits and philanthropy. There are heated proponents and opponents of this idea.

However, I've started to wonder what philanthropy might learn from politics and vice versa. Specifically, what can be learned from the 2008 US Presidential campaigns. I'm not the only one asking this question - articles from the San Francisco Chronicle, Fast Company, The Atlantic, Wired, and elsewhere have asked similar questions. So does scholarly research, and legal analysis, as well as bloggers like Beth Kanter and others.

Some of the observations/questions that make resonate with me are these:

• How does change funded by high net worth individuals compare to change funded and fueled by the people?
• The fabric of the Obama ground game... was produced by weaving community organizing structure with the technology and philosophy of social media. My burning question is - "What would the impact of community philanthropy be if funded and fueled by the people?"
  
• Would our communities look different if our traditional philanthropic institutions take a deep breath and surrender the need for absolute control?"
• Obama campaign as an org is as flat and connected to ground, not top down and centralized. sounds good if you say it real fast but its new for organizations to have staff who work to connect outsiders, bridge turf, and repeatedly offer points of connection so that each individual finds the one that works for him/her.

What are the elements of how the campaigns that most interest you from the perspective of what you or your organization might learn?

Is it how they:

• have been using technology?
• structuring themselves?
• using volunteers?
• using the media?
  
• delivering information?
  
• raising funds?
• mobilizing online communities?
• giving their supporters online invitations/tracking tools/etc. to host fundraisers?
  
• Other?

How do the examples that you noted matter most to communities? To community philanthropy? To any philanthropy?

• Tags: philanthropy,politics,campaigns

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