January Giving Carnival

Step right up. Now showing for the first time, a rare glimpse into the future of foundations. The brightest minds in the blogosphere make their predictions on what foundations will look like 10, 25, or even 50 years from now. Use their uncanny predictions to boost your career, improve your grantmaking, or to win bar bets. No questions are left unanswered. Will the Foundation of the Future only fund programs that benefit puppies and children? Will it be run by people that have attained the elusive PhD in Philanthropy? Will the Foundation of the Future actually be the donor advised fund of the future, since foundations are outlawed by Congress in 2016? There is only one way to find out, read the predictions below:

Change Fan wrote Foundations of the Future: Payout, Pooling, Prizes and Proposals.

Arlene at the Grant Plant’s foundation of the future may have the best view from it’s space dock.

Phil Cubeta at Gift Hub sees a more engaged future for foundations.

Christopher Scott at Nonprofit Leadership, Innovation, and Change sees a more agile foundation in the future.

Jason at a Small Change predicts more online foundations in our future along with more multi-year giving.

Sean at Tactical Philanthropy expects that the "social stock exchange" will be where foundations look for grantees in the future.

Richard Marker at Wise Philanthropy sees increased collaboration and a decrease in grantmaking dollars.

Jake at Seliger and Associates thinks that foundations will remain stingy and self-interested.

I wrote about survival of the fittest for foundations of the future.

Do you think our crystal balls are foggy? What do you see for foundations of the future?

Survivor- Foundation Edition

January Giving Carnival Submission

The year is 2035, foundations have faced increased attention because of the extraordinary success of the Gates and Google Foundations in solving pressing social issues. The Federal government intervened and the following changes to the sector were implemented:

990 is used to apply for foundation funding. A combination of a backward looking 990 form and a strategic planning document for the next fiscal year is used by nonprofits to apply for foundation funding. This online document can be accessed by anyone and individuals and foundations choose to support projects and general operations of organizations that meet their interests. This system keeps a running total on how close a project is to full funding, it also gives donors access to clear outcomes for each organization and project. These systems are funded by the federal government because a 2015 study of the nonprofit sector by the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota found that investments in the infrastructure needs of the nonprofit sector had the best return on investment of any government subsidy. This was a surprise to government officials who thought that sports stadiums had the best return on investment.

Nonprofits are not granted 501(c)(3) status until they have proved the effectiveness of their service model. Nonprofits will begin their existence as a test project of local and national nonprofit incubators. These incubators will be funded jointly by the government and the foundation sectors to support emerging nonprofit organizations. Services of these incubators will include fiscal sponsorship, training, financial services, employee benefits, and administrative support. The role of incubators will be to help these fl edging organizations develop strong programming that will provide a benefit to the community. Ineffective programs will be scrapped or redesigned within two years. (See how this survival of the fittest model could apply to the world of M & M's). Programs that are effective may become a registered 501(c)(3) or more likely will become a program of an existing nonprofit. Matches with existing nonprofits will be made through the collaboration coordinator of the incubator. Nonprofits will be encouraged to take on successful program models because funding for nonprofits will be closely tied to universally accepted effectiveness ratings.

Minimum Foundation payout is not measured in dollars but by return on investment for the community. Once the Federal government understood how much effective nonprofits could save the local and federal government in future spending the 5% minimum payout was reconsidered. A new formula was developed that took into account the return on investment of foundation grants. Foundations that were supporting ineffective programming had an increased minimum payout (15-30%), so that they would spend themselves out of existence. Foundations that made effective grants were then subject to a 7% minimum payout. Foundations then had an increased self-interest in hiring the best training staff possible. Enrollment in philanthropy and public policy master’s degree programs increased exponentially, as did hiring from these programs. Creating a younger and more diverse foundation sector.

Giving Carnival Preview

I thought I would give you a sneak peek of the submissions for this month’s Giving Carnival, you still have till tomorrow to send me your submissions. On Monday you will see the full list of submissions here.

Change Fan wrote Foundations of the Future: Payout, Pooling, Prizes and Proposals

http://www.changefan.com/CFContent/Blog/cfb0003_foundation_of_the_future_011508.asp

Arlene at the Grant Plant’s foundation of the future may have the best view from it’s space dock http://thegrantplant.blogspot.com/2008/01/foundation-of-future.html

From Phil Cubeta at Gift Hub sees a more engaged future for foundations http://www.gifthub.org/2008/01/the-foundation.html

Send me your postings or make your own prediction below, the future of foundations depends on you.

A new source of big ideas

There is a great new website that is being called the YouTube for ideas. I always get excited when I see new forums for people sharing ideas and finding solutions to problems. Spend some time on Big Think's philanthropy section and add your own ideas to the mix. Check out the New York Times article below to see how it all got started.

Ex-Harvard President Meets a Former Student, and Intellectual Sparks Fly
Published: January 7, 2008

In June 2006, Peter Hopkins, a civic-minded and idealistic 2004 Harvard graduate, trekked up to his alma mater from New York for a meeting with Lawrence H. Summers, the economist and former Treasury secretary. Mr. Hopkins, who finagled the appointment through his friendship with Mr. Summers’s assistant, had a business idea: a Web site that could do for intellectuals what YouTube, the popular video-sharing site, did for bulldogs on skateboards.

The pitch — “a YouTube for ideas” — appealed to Mr. Summers. “Larry, to his credit, is open to new ideas,” Mr. Hopkins recalled recently. “He grilled me for two hours.” In the age of user-generated content, Mr. Summers did have one worry: “Let’s say someone puts up a porn video next to my macroeconomic speech?”

Big Think (www.bigthink.com) mixes interviews with public intellectuals from a variety of fields, from politics, to law to business, and allows users to engage in debates on issues like global warming and the two-party system. It plans to add new features as it goes along, including a Facebook-like application for social networking, and Mr. Hopkins said he would like the site to become a popular place for college students looking for original sources.

“I’ve had the general view that there is a hunger for people my age looking for more intellectual content,” said Mr. Summers, who resigned as Harvard president in 2006 after making controversial comments about the lack of women in science and engineering. “I saw it as president of Harvard when I saw C.E.O.’s come up to my wife and want to discuss Hawthorne.” (His wife, Elisa New, is a professor of English at Harvard). See the rest of the article here.

Getting off the couch

Stretch assignments aren't just for the office. Penelope Trunk from the Brazen Careerist has an interesting post about how your overall satisfaction with life is tied to how willing you to challenge yourself at home. If your routine is the same every night (fast food, 2 hours in front of the tv, and 3 hours surfing the internet aimlessly), how can you expect to be a challenge-taking go-getter at work? Mix up your routine just a little bit and you will be surprised at the results.