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Tuesday, November 14, 2006 Part II: Philanthropy's New PrototypeIf Nicholas Negroponte can achieve his ambition of distributing $100 laptops to the world's disadvantaged children, he will help redefine philanthropy and see his name added to a list alongside the likes of Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller. By James Surowiecki
[Previously featured: Part I] Enterprising Philanthropy As the names of the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations suggest, American philanthropy has always depended heavily on American businessmen. But with some exceptions--like the Carnegie libraries, or the Salvation Army, which Peter Drucker once called "the most effective organization in the United States"--the fact that foundations were mostly funded by business did not mean they were businesslike in their approach. Over the last decade or so, that has changed dramatically. Beginning sometime in the mid-1990s, two trends came together to remake philanthropy in the United States: the tremendous boom in the U.S. economy and stock market, and a growing desire on the part of wealthy businesspeople to apply their moneymaking techniques to other, less commercial endeavors. The economic boom meant a lot more money floating around: charitable donations in the United States rose 10 percent annually in the late 1990s. It also meant a lot of newly wealthy people, many of them entrepreneurs, who were interested in figuring out how to spend that money in the smartest way possible. The result has been an explosion in new forms of philanthropic investment and a concentrated effort to identify what might be thought of as the philanthropic equivalent of business opportunities: areas where neither business nor government has been meeting a need. And although the growth in charitable donations slowed with the stock-market crash and recession, it's picked up again, with donations rising about 23 percent between 2001 and 2005. Some philanthropies are taking on immense global problems. The Gates Foundation, most obviously, has become one of the world's most forceful promoters of research on malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS, while Bill Clinton is currently raising billions to improve AIDS treatment and research. Some are taking on smaller, local problems. The Acumen Fund, for instance, operates as a kind of philanthropic venture capital fund, working with companies in the developing world on products and services designed specifically to serve the four billion people who live on less than $4 a day; its projects include drip-irrigation kits in India and malaria nets in Africa. The Omidyar Network funds both profit-seeking and nonprofit enterprises, while Google's various philanthropic enterprises invest in everything from traditional nonprofits to projects like OLPC to for-profit ventures. What all these organizations have in common is a much greater focus on the return they get on their investments in charities, with "return" defined more in terms of its social than its financial value. Often, they explicitly demand that grant recipients meet performance goals just as any corporate division would be expected to. The premise is that it's possible to bring greater rationality not only to the grant-making process but to the actual operations of philanthropic organizations. This new model is sometimes called "high-engagement philanthropy": just as venture capitalists often play an important role in shaping the strategies of the companies they fund, these new foundations tend to be more directly involved in their grantees' operational decisions.
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Part III: Philanthropy's New Prototype
11/15/2006
Comments
don.hutchinson on 11/14/2006 at 10:31 AM
12
TPeople in gthe US tend to assume that schools in this country use computers for education. Not true
Usage is limited to writing, papers, and occasional spreadsheet and research on the web. Teaching per se is essentially zero. In part due to resistance from the teaching profession - (Luddites afraid of competition).
'
Colleges make more use of computers and online instruction.But the result is unbelievably bad. The computer types believe that all that is required is to to place a textbook online or encourage a professor to place his lecture notes on line. The result is that online courses are rarely interactive, make little use of the ability of the computer, and treat all learners in the same way.
How can we expect whole countries to make effective use of computers in schools when the US itself is incapable - and the material for instruction is so limited? We have a well recognized need for improved instruction in Math, with a huge shortage of qualified teachers. This should be a recipe for online instruction.
But nothing is happening So what are the prospects for success with OLPC?
MikeS on 11/14/2006 at 12:32 PM
3
I would love to see this work and help close the "digital divide". I just don't think it will, even if the laptops were free.
GiselaGiardino on 11/14/2006 at 10:39 PM
1
However, I believe that what Mr Negroponte is doing will spill benefits from many sides and will actually make technology more available in the middle term for more people worldwide. And also he is helping in creating a broader and deeper social consciousness. So, whatever the final outcome of this project will be -in relation to the setted goal- I think that it is itself a case of success, here and now.
SVE on 11/15/2006 at 1:11 AM
42
Anyone in the 3rd world who manages to scrape enough money together immediately gets a cellphone first. This is not silly on their part, it is extremely practical. You want to dump money on some technology for the less well off? Get them all free cellphones. The devices will get bigger screens and keyboards soon enough. Internet surfing and IMing is reasonably priced and readily available. And they'll fit right in with the existing infrastructure.
MikeS on 11/15/2006 at 5:35 PM
3
fixerdave on 11/17/2006 at 12:13 AM
5
The OLPC device is as much, or more, an eBook reader as it is a laptop. Bring the laptop to school, download the latest textbook (distributed via Internet or radio) and read it at home, or in class for that matter.
Try wandering into a college bookstore and look at the price of textbooks - a $150 reader is a fantastic bargain compared to buying books. This is why they are saying they can drop the cost of educating children from $200 per year to $30 per year. From the Education Ministry perspective, in one year, the laptop pays for itself.
Of course, the $200 quote is probably best-case, only the richer schools could afford that many new books each year, and the $30 quote is probably also best-case too. Still, if this device can replace textbooks then it's a good thing. If you look at the spec's, you'll see it has excellent features for an eBook reader.
David...