Strategic Philanthropy Quotes

If your aims as a donor are modest, you can accomplish an awful lot. When your aims become elevated beyond a reasonable level, you not only don't accomplish much, but you can cause a great deal of damage.

When you incorporate giving into your business, you attract the most amazing partners.

Being innovative in your philanthropy allows you to stride forward in your giving journey; you can marry your mind and heart to turn charity into lasting impact; and you can become more ambitious in your giving.

Billions are wasted on ineffective philanthropy. Philanthropy is decades behind business in applying rigorous thinking to the use of money.

I think philanthropy is also growing and catching on. Figuring out how the philanthropy sector, which is quite small compared to the private sector, which is the biggest by far, and then the governments, you know, even in these poor countries over time has to take on these key responsibilities. How does philanthropy accelerate that? Drive the kind of innovations, make sure they get used well. So it plays this kind of special role.

We’re seeing that business models and philanthropic models are not mutually exclusive.

Online, you can become much more than a reactive donor - you can become a proactive, strategic, collaborative philanthropist, improving your giving every day by tapping into the wealth of philanthropic resources available at the tap of a keyboard or the click of a mouse.

Those who would administer [charity] wisely must, indeed, be wise, for one of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity. It were better for mankind that the millions of the rich were thrown into the sea than spent to encourage the slothful, the drunken, the unworthy. Of every thousand dollars spent in so-called charity today, it is probable that nine hundred and fifty dollars is unwisely spent - so spent, indeed, as to produce the very evils which it hopes to mitigate or cure.

This was the invention of modern American philanthropy as we know it. The idea of systematizing giving to achieve human progress was the true innovation of John D. Rockefeller, and ultimately the Rockefeller Foundation's legacy.

There is a natural link between the effective running of my businesses and the effective direction of philanthropic funds. I apply business principles to my philanthropic work so that maximum value is given to the causes I support.

When I started teaching at Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2000, no field-based courses in strategic philanthropy existed.

Celebrity and charity have been bedfellows for many years. The key is to try and choose practical, sound and effective ones. There is no shortage of solicitation for endorsement, so you have to really know what you're getting behind and be passionate about it. In this case, aside from just being a spokesperson, they're benefiting a form of expression that is dear to me, painting.

In philanthropy, many of us give a little bit and each year we give more and more to see what actually works and not just throw money out there and see if it's going to work. If the government did the same thing, fabulous.

When incomes and bonuses decrease, revenues falter, and businesses stumble, it's more important than ever to give - not necessarily more, but in a way that matters more. When incomes are down and wallets are stretched, the effectiveness of our giving is what really counts.

Pure philanthropy is very well in its way but philanthropy plus five percent is a good deal better.

I think that there is philanthropy and there is publicity. If you can marry the two to do something good, then I think it's great. Some of the other guys go around and slag people as a profession. That's not so interesting to me, because it's easy to take down, it's harder to build.

Philanthropic humility is necessary if a giver is to do more good than harm, but it is not sufficient - philanthropic prudence is also needed.

The organized charity, scrimped and iced, In the name of a cautious, statistical Christ.

Philanthropy is often seen as society's risk capital. That means the onus is on philanthropists, nonprofit leaders and social entrepreneurs to innovate. But philanthropic innovation is not just about creating something new. It also means applying new thinking to old problems, processes and systems.

Charitable giving is a huge sector in the United States. It amounts to $350 billion a year. And yet, I can't help feeling that a lot of that is wasted because people have not been thinking about how to do it as effectively as possible.

I like to be hands-on because that's what motivates me. I like to involved from the ground-breaking to ribbon-cutting to auditing the funds. Just giving money away is a little discouraging because I don't know where it is going.

You should command and demand the tenfold leverage on your dollars when you give it away as well.