Events Detail

Transcript Now Available - Click Here! (PDF Format, 30 pages, 283 KB)

A complete, edited transcript is now available of our November 27 discussion entitled

Social Venture Philanthropy at 10: Problems, Promises, Prospects

Tuesday, November 27, 2007
12:00 to 2:00 p.m.
Hudson Institute
Betsy and Walter Stern Conference Center
1015 15th Street, NW - Suite 600
Washington, DC 20005

Event Description

It has been ten years since the first “social venture philanthropy” (SVP) partnership was launched in Seattle – enough time to draw some conclusions about its impact, its problems and its prospects.

PAUL SHOEMAKER, executive director of Social Venture Partners Seattle and founding president of SVP International, notes* that today there are SVP’s in 23 cities, with 1,700 partners in America and a group in Japan. Members are asked to contribute a minimum of $5,000 each, but are also expected to contribute “human capital,” i.e., the members “are directly involved in deciding where grant money goes in the community. They are involved in lending their professional skills and expertise to nonprofits as volunteers to help them build their capacity,” as well as in “ongoing education to increase their knowledge about the nonprofit sector and about philanthropy.” Shoemaker notes that the SVP may have been distorted by some ostensible practitioners who “happened to be big-mouthed and suggested they were going to save the world with their great business practices.” Indeed, seasoned philanthropy observers like Princeton’s STANLEY KATZ argue** that, “whatever positive consequences [SVP] might have for grantees and their programs . . . this nominally new approach is not really telling us anything we didn’t already know to do.”

Drawing from this ongoing conversation in philanthropy, the Bradley Center's November 27 panel discussion about social venture philanthropy – its problems, promises, and prospects – featured CAROL THOMPSON COLE of Venture Philanthropy Partners, STANLEY KATZ, PAUL SHOEMAKER, and EDWARD SKLOOT, formerly of the Surdna Foundation. The Bradley Center's own WILLIAM SCHAMBRA served as the discussion's moderator.

* Paul Shoemaker was interviewed by Sean Stannard-Stockton for a podcast on his blog Tactical Philanthropy on June 7, 2007. Click here to read.
** Stanley Katz makes this case in a June 2005 piece published in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. Click here to read.

Shoemaker, Thompson Cole, Skloot, Katz & Schambra

Program and Panel

11:45 a.m.
Registration, lunch buffet

12:00 p.m.
Welcome by Hudson Institute's WILLIAM SCHAMBRA

12:10
Panel discussion
PAUL SHOEMAKER, Social Venture Partners Seattle
EDWARD SKLOOT, formerly of the Surdna Foundation
CAROL THOMPSON COLE, Venture Philanthropy Partners
STANLEY KATZ, Princeton University

1:10
Question-and-answer session

2:00
Adjournment

Transcript Information

The event transcript was prepared from an audio recording and edited by Bradley Center staff and interns. To request further information on this event or the Bradley Center, please contact Hudson Institute at (202) 974-2424 or e-mail Krista at krista@hudson.org.