Philanthropy Reconsidered
- Fri, November 07 2008
- Filed under: Marketing essentials
Deborah Elizabeth Finn has a great new review of the book, Philanthropy Reconsidered by George McCully. She notes:
George explains how our rhetoric (and perhaps therefore our thinking) has shifted, as we’ve moved from the industrial age to the information age in philanthropy. It’s no longer about grand patrons giving away their bounty to the deserving poor - it’s about all of us wanting to make a difference, working together, and investing in the change we want to see in the world.
We tend to make use of terms such as “nonprofit” to describe our organizations, thus allowing the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to define not only our sector, but to define the taxonomy by which we understand our missions. In his book, George proposes an alternate taxonomy that he developed in the context of his work with the Catalogue For Philanthropy. He points out the need for terminology not based on postive rather than negative definitions (e.g., “nonprofit” or “nongovernmental”), and a taxonomy that orients us to philanthropy as an integral part of our human mission.
I agree with that for sure.
It reminds me of what our friends at For Impact like to say: We’re not not-for-profits at heart. We’re for impact. And we need as many people behind that as possible.