THE WORLD AROUND PHILANTHROPY

GLOBALIZATION The growing scale and complexity of today’s

issues—from epidemics to human trafficking—seldom adhere to traditional geographic and programmatic boundaries. At the same time,

resources and ideas to address these problems are coming from all over the world, not just the West. Increasingly, the solutions of the future will need to match this global scope and scale,

and to cross old borders and boundaries.

PRIVATIZATION The power and wealth of private actors—

businesses, nongovernmental organizations, and individuals—has grown dramatically, and now has greater potential than ever before to both

create and solve social problems. Private individuals such as President Clinton can lead

international efforts that once were the province of government. Although the importance and

power of governments has not necessarily diminished, the stage on which they work—and the actors with whom they must interact—has

been transformed.

CONNECTION New tools and technologies—from free

conference calls and emails to blogs, wikis, tags, texts, and twitters—are changing the way we

communicate and connect. These “social media” tools now allow more people to easily engage

and connect, irrespective of geographic distance; they let us access a greater diversity of

perspectives and expertise; and they can facilitate accelerated learning and on-demand access to information—all while reducing the

costs of participation and coordination. The tools are allowing us to re-imagine many of the social acts we already do—activities such as learning,

organizing people, generating ideas, sharing knowledge, and allocating resources—but with

the potential to do them bigger, better, faster, and cheaper than ever before.

ACCELERATION As the density, speed, and scope of connection has increased, our society has accelerated the

rate at which information is communicated, the rate at which it can be incorporated into other processes, and the number of people who can

use that information to create new ideas, synthesize new inventions, and make decisions.

One effect is that there is a new pressure on individuals and institutions at all levels—local, regional, national, and global—to respond more

rapidly to shifting external circumstances.

You and/or Your

Institution

Philanthropy

The World THE WORLD OF PHILANTHROPY

MULTIPLICATION Everything associated with the domain of

social benefit has grown significantly in the last 25 years, making it both a more active and more crowded environment. There are

more wealthy individuals able to give, more foundations, more donor-advised funds, more

giving circles, more philanthropy-related businesses, and more nonprofit organizations competing for funds. This increases the pool

of ideas, resources, and allies for anyone seeking to address an issue, but also could add to the fragmentation and duplication of

effort in the sector.

DIVERSIFICATION Not only is philanthropy growing in size, it is

diversifying by almost every measure. Today’s wealthy include growing numbers of women, Latinos, blacks, Asians, and others who bring their respective cultural traditions as well as their assets. Younger donors who

made their money in industries like IT, finance, and biotechnology bring new

assumptions about how to get things done and how active they want to be as living donors.

And philanthropy is no longer only the province of the rich, as new technologies

make it easier than ever before for people of all backgrounds and perspectives to give.

OBSERVATION The enormous growth in both the number of people engaged in the social sector and the

amount of money coursing through it is sufficient to attract attention. Add in the

increasing availability of information and the means to communicate it instantaneously and mounting scrutiny is inevitable. As the New

York Times has written, the public is now “asking do-gooders to prove they do good.” Both givers and grantees are being held to

rising standards of accountability and transparency by legislators, the media, and

the broader public.

REFLECTION In the last 30 years, people in the social sector

have benefited from enormous advances in their ability to reflect on and share their own

work and the work of others in the field. There is now a history to study and many

more institutions and vehicles through which one can learn it. What began as a relatively

small field with little information available is rapidly becoming a mature industry.

Philanthropists now operate in a context that is deeply different from the one in w h i c h m a n y o f t h e i r institutions, assumptions, and habits were formed. Funders sit in the middle of changes taking place in the broader world outside of philanthropy, and in the midst of irreversible changes within philanthropy itself.

The pressures of this new environment, and the need to respond to it, will shape both how philanthropy is practiced and the role and influence of large donors and foundations within the field for the next generation.

THE CHANGING CONTEXT FOR PHILANTHROPY

© Copyright 2009 Monitor Institute

Philanthropy by the Numbers Number of foundations in the U.S. in 1984: 24,859 Number of foundations in the U.S. in 2007: 75,187 Average number of new foundations created in the U.S. per day in 2007: 8

Number of foundations with assets over $1 billion (in 2007 dollars) in 1984: 11 Number of foundations with assets over $1 billion in 2007: 156 Portion of the field comprised by those billion-dollar foundations: 0.2% Fraction of all foundation assets they hold: 67% Portion of the field comprised by foundations under $1 million: 63%

Total charitable giving (from all sources) in 1984 (in 2007 dollars): $142 billion Total charitable giving (from all sources) in 2007: $314 billion Total foundation giving in 1984 (in 2007 dollars): $5 billion Total foundation giving in 2007: $44 billion

Privatization of Wealth

Of the world’s 100 largest revenue producers in 2007, only 33 were countries/governments (measured by budget revenue). The other 67 were corporations (measured by annual revenue).

Wal-Mart was the eleventh largest revenue-producing entity in the world, behind only the governments of the U.S., Japan, Germany, France, the UK, Italy, China, Spain, Canada, and the Netherlands.

Bill Gates net worth in 2007, $59 billion, was larger than the GDP of many countries, including Croatia, Ecuador, and Bulgaria.

Cell Phone Growth Number of cell phones globally today: ~4 billion Number of years to sign up the first billion cell phone subscribers: 20 years

Number of years to sign up the second billion subscribers: 40 months Number of years to sign up the third billion subscribers: 24 months

Number of new cell phone customers around the world every minute: 1,000

A few facts and figures about philanthropy’s changing context

Number of High Net Worth and Ultra High Net Worth Individuals

Growth in the Number of U.S. Billionaires and U.S. Foundations

Web pages indexed by Google

© Copyright 2009 Monitor Institute

Number of Articles in All U.S. Newspapers and Wires with Philanthropy in the Headline or the Lead Paragraph

U.S. Billionaires

U.S. Foundations

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