Author Archive:
Lucy Bernholz
The effects of digital systems on giving
Digital systems like mobile phones and networked computers make it ever easier to ask for money and to give it – possibly even too easy, as the Scrooge-like feeling I recounted having at the opening …
Civil society in the digital age: 2021 EFC Conference Preview
The 2021 European Foundation Centre annual conference will look at ‘ways for philanthropy to help catalyse a more holistic response to the vast challenges that still lie ahead’. The event will take shape via four …
The infrastructure behind the infrastructure
The digital space is the infrastructure that we all depend on. But for civil society to secure its freedom of thought and action is a major challenge Support organizations are not the only kind …
Time for philanthropy to master digital data
Civil society organizations are well practised in using time and money for good. From now on, however, they also need to master using digital data and infrastructure. Like the other sectors of our societies, both …
Philanthropy and the Social Economy: Blueprint 2016
Philanthropy and the Social Economy: Blueprint 2016 is an annual industry forecast about the ways we use private resources for public benefit. Foundation Center is pleased to again partner with Lucy to offer the Blueprint as a GrantCraft guide. The Blueprint provides an …
Provocations on American Foundations and Policy
American foundations sometimes fund advocacy or policy analysis or community organizing as part of their strategies for particular types of social change. But who advocates on behalf of foundations about philanthropic policy? And what are …
An index we really need
We’ve been measuring philanthropic giving for decades. There are several directories and annual tallies of American charitable giving. For about the last decade, the impact investing movement has been trying to establish definitions, baselines, and …
State of Civil Society 2015
Civicus has released its annual State of Civil Society Report for 2015 – the full download is here. I’m proud to have contributed an essay on digital civil society – the first such analysis I …
From the edge to the middle
There is a common assumption that innovation is usually found on the outside edges of an existing sector or industry and that startups and upstarts are the most reliable sources of new ideas. In that …
In search of digital civil society around the world
I recently had the opportunity to discuss the role of digital data and my ideas about digital civil society in Beijing, China and São Paolo, Brazil. Some reflections: Beijing – the day before this photo …
