today l'd like to extend his talk about another gift economy called "philanthropy" , I believe a whole lot of shift has to happen to return philanthropy to its noble purpose where philanthropy is all about the inner landscape and a wellspring that comes from love and compassion and generosity
So the first thing I'll contend is that philanthropy is not about money
Americans last year gave away more than three hundred and sixty billion dollars, that's about a billion dollars a day every day of the year
And like mr. Mehta claimed if we only measure philanthropy in dollars there is a the only metric for fund raisers thus we commoditize both philanthropy and philanthropists
we start putting price tads on everything that philanthropic money can buy buildings, programs, chairs rooms, and all the other naming opportunities I contend that we need to shift our focus from raising money to deepening meeting meaning in philanthropy this is the road far less traveled by philanthropy is all about possibility causes and cures generosity and joy and impact leaving this world a better place than we found it and the fun fact is scientists and researchers by putting generous people into functional MRls and scanning their brains have found that when we give to others thee joy centers of our brain light up that actually brain chemistry changes "oxytocion" increases and joy results so because humans are meaning makers when we experience meaningful, purposeful, impactful giving and joy we want to experience it again
for thousands of years have been hardwired for caring and sharing rather than just accumulating and defending
So philanthropy is not about moving money from a benefactors pocket to a fund raisers pocket philanthropy is all about a willingness to make lives communities and indeed the very fragile sphere on which we inhabit a kinder gentler and more sustainable place on which we write our moral biographies fundraising has absolutely nothing to do with selling but rather it involves ethical inspiration finding like-minded and light-hearted individuals soul models in the world
On the other hand if we continue to objectify and commoditize philanthropy these benefactors begin to see themselves as philanthropic "ATMs"
and studies show very clearly that major benefactor stop diving to organizations because they feel they're separated for the impact their gift makes on people or the planet it's not about being recognized for their it's about feeling connected to a cause to a moral purpose bigger than ourselves and to ideas and ideals that will live on beyond our lifetime
philanthropy is all about generatibity and generosity freely giving to others or we would rename all our nonprofit office the departments of taking
this great man
Martin Buber
A 19th century philosopher said there's two was we can look at each other and engage each other one is an I it relationship objectification where we see benefactors as means to their money or in an i thou relationship where we see the greater good in each other and treat others as ends in themselves and not as ameans to their money
so we have to shift from scarcity in philanthropy and much of philanthropy today seems about scarcity which fuels competition between nonprofits after all there's only so much philanthropic pie available so we have to get to a benefactor before others pitch to them or target them for a gift some fund raisers actually call potential benefactors suspects and prospects as if we were in the law enforcement or mining industry we refer to gifts as major mega ultimate the gift of a lifetime the focus on size rather than on the purpose impact and significance scarcity speaks in terms of never enough fear greed Envy of competition entitlement and external riches scarcity also implies needs
and his nonprofits needs narrow our vision our aperture we become about problems, about budgets, about obstacles, about challenges
when we talk about needs and needs and needs...
for our institution we become needy and less aspirational for our organizations and less inspirational for our benefactors ,
benefactors dopes want to walk with needy organizations they want to share a road paved by aspirations and highest hopes
so we shift to abundance which manifests in creativity in energy in a far vaster range of possible futures this is the energy of generosity this is where we're able to alter that line between the possible and the impossible
abundance engenders trust love respect compassion and inner riches as humans we're both, forward leaning and forward-thinking beings and as such requires spiritual points along the horizon upon which to fix our eyes we shift from raising dollars to raising sights can you feel the energy shift between that small box of needs at her feet and those opportunities and possibilities along the horizon
This great man did not say I have a strategic plan or a needs
he said I have a dream,
when we abandon the scarcity model the competitive extrinsic model of philanthropy
we stopped scheming to get a benefactors money and we start dreaming of what great good we can accomplish together ,
so everything I ever learned in my 38 years of philanthropy I learned from philanthropists and I have permission
today to quote from one of the most inspiring of all Leslie Canad he's in his mid 90s he walked out of the work camps in Europe after the war and his wife walked out of which they saw the worst that mankind could perpetrate on other and then they turned around and showed us their better faces the better angels of our nature and gave remarkable gifts,
and he said to me and I have permission in this "Hungarian" accent :Jim
God gave me one big head on my shoulders for big Ideas
God did not give me a little spare head on my shoulders for little ideas, so don't ever bring me little ideas there is no scarcity for philanthropy in America generally or in Fargo specifically but there may be a scarcity of big compelling ideas I ask you to shift your energy to big audacious possible futures for next generation shift from talking and telling and selling where our agenda is sold to philanthropist the big Mouthe and the little tiny ears
we shift to listening to learning and discerning
what is compelling to the benefactors we serve and to their value systems and the road we take with them towards co-creating the future
we switch from pushing people to make a gift we don't say what you should give and how much you should give and when you should give and what amount you should give
what happens when we practice the shaming model of philanthropy as Paul service calls it we feel should upon we feel told and sold when we are a best est fundraisers we are asking important question,
when is enough enough, what is the quality of our wants,
what is the moral responsibility of wealth,
so it's about pulling this is Lil allure of an attractive goal or strongly
desired good recognized by Plato and Aristotle as well as by many great other thinkers it embodies a valued ideal it attracts us, it moves us to put forth our best efforts our greatest hopes bigger ideas bigger ideals more compelling narratives climbing the ladder of life with one hand pulling yourself up and the other hand lifting up the next generation so about six years into my career I was facing complete burnout I eat Monday I would make six calls to get three visits to make three asks to get one gift this is what I now call full frontal philanthropy I come I ask you give I go rinse and repeat full frontal philanthropy is a zero-sum game an economic exchange I am more and you are less I mean how much "oxytocin" enjoy philanthropy joy do you see in the exchange
Now under the good shift we don't go face to face in a competitive way with benefactor new actually turn shoulders to shoulders and face that common we co-create ideas and we indeed shape the future many of you have had the sad experience of a family member having pancreatic cancer and working with the gentleman who had just lost his father
I said you lost your father to this dread disease a disease that by the time you diagnosed it, it is often too late for a cure I lost my mother to pancreatic cancer and we have a researcher who believes she can find an early marker for the detection of pancreatic cancer
do you think that's an important place to go and we invite philanthropists to come and take a walk with us philanthropy is not another toward thing we do to benefactors but an important walk we take with philanthropist
so I keep a Buddhist begging bowl in my office because we have a choice as fundraisers and as philanthropy we can either think of ourselves as beggars or mendicants taking money from benefactors or we can think of ourselves as offering an opportunity to be generous to have greater senses of well-being living better longer lives more significant lives
David's David brooks may have said it best when he talked about the question in life are we building our resumes and increasing our bank accounts or are we painting our eulogies writing our moral biographies
Well I I'm not so sure this is about apples and oranges the shifts I've talked about money to meaning and impact need based to possibility rich
face to face to side by side not selling but compelling not pushing but pulling, resumes and bank accounts to eulogies and moral biographies not treating people as commodities but co-creators of better futures indeed this is about apples and Tuesday
Simple but not easy as his holiness has always said about meditation there is a higher road we can take for our organizations and indeed a deeper well we can plumb with our benefactors
so I'd like to end with a poem favorite of princess Diana ARP was from Australia princes and kings isn't it strange how princes and kings and clowns that caper and sawdust rings and common people like you and me are builders for eternity each has given a list of rules a shapeless mass a bag of tools and each must fashion air life has flown stumbling block or stepping-stone
I ask you today what will you shape with your philanthropy or as a fundraiser and when the echoes of our talks have faded when another day dawns and another billion dollars in philanthropy is waged against the pain of the world
I ask you not to think of them as dollars but as a billion votes of hope in a world that most needs hope and add your voices and votes to this choir that sings of a better day in nice and Orlando in Paris and in Fargo go do good shift Fargo .