Something inspiring
Early this month at a Philanthropy Australia event, the inspirational Dr. Jason Franklin, Chair of W.K. Kellogg Community Philanthropy, provided three recommendations to increase the power of philanthropic giving.
Giving must move at the speed of trust
Social change including movement mobilisation, protests and direct actions are happening more quickly than ever before. Philanthropy can no longer be a slow-moving vehicle with a six or eight-month cycle. Philanthropists must respond by changing processes to match the pace of social change and movements around them.
Have uncomfortable conversations
We (philanthropists) have got into the habit of politely dancing around uncomfortable conversations, and when we do this we don’t end up with effective strategies. For example, we often shy away from conversations around what is the right level of giving, causes behind inequality, power-struggles and failure. Conversations around these topics is critical to us being able to take more risks with philanthropy.
Philanthropy will also benefit from moving beyond its limited definition of failure. We can’t keep classifying things as a complete success or a complete failure, when most things fall in the middle. Should we also judge many of our current activities as failures, given their inability to change the underlying dynamics that have led them being needed in the first place?
The power of stories
Storytelling is about the personal experience, it is about the failures as well as the successes. We live in a society which wants constant gratification, are all rushed for time and believe in the 30 second elevator pitch model. Hence we are always trying to minimise our pitch into something narrow and specific: “If you give me $20,000 I can engage 15 students and teach them maths”. This is simply a set of facts and will do nothing to inspire people to incredible generosity.
If we want to reach people at an emotional level, then story-telling is the key. It builds trust in a deeper way and people are more likely to join your cause because of it. We need to give ourselves the space and time to develop stories and also hear them.
Storytelling will provide us with the ability to shift the conversation from immediate results to long term systemic change.
