Weekly Reads – August 14, 2019

A roundup of timely insight from the grantmaking community and beyond.

“Most of us take the majority of gatherings for granted. We’ve relegated the function of the convener into a logistical job. When you realize that gathering is a form of strategy, and is a form of culture change, then you also realize that we often start with the wrong questions, which are the logistical questions.”  [more]
—Priya Parker, in The Chronicle of Philanthropy

“In grantmaking, as in life, we learn best when we engage with others who have different points of view and challenge our preconceptions.”  [more]
—Johnson Center 

“Part of the unintentional ‘othering’ of our grantees comes from the fact that many folks who work in philanthropy have never experienced the problems that we fund, nor have they been a part of the solution. Hiring folks who have worked on the ground, like myself, is a start. Valuing the knowledge of grantees beyond impact and results is even better.”  [more]
—Nupur Chaudhury, New York State Health Foundation, on NCRP blog

“As gender equity continues to grow as a social and philanthropic priority, donors to women’s funds and foundations exemplify how to have an outsized effect on the causes you care about.”  [more]
—All In for Women and Girls Report, IUPUI

“The world is complex, measuring charity has to be too … We risk oversimplifying problems and thus having the false sense of clarity that quantitative metrics tend to create.” [more]
—Joi Ito, MIT Media Lab, in Wired

“Now more than ever, it is imperative that philanthropy embrace immigration as a cross-cutting issue, transcend funding silos and make long-term investments in immigrant communities.”  [more]
—Daranee Petsod, Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees, in NCRP