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Conference Notebook

May 06, 2008

Council on Foundations
How Foundations Can Best Help the Poor

Newt Gingrich, the former U. S. Speaker of the House, said he was against trying to get philanthropy to find the “perfect planning model” and “dubious” of efforts in the U. S. Senate and elsewhere endeavoring to “fine tune” philanthropy.”

He said he did not see a “single best path” for philanthropy or nonprofit activities, but that that just about everything charities do should be based on information technology.

He also advised foundations to spend 10 percent of their time thinking beyond five years, 20 percent of their time thinking beyond two years, and the rest thinking about the present.

He said that philanthropy needed to support “full-blown experiments” in poor neighborhoods to help people become productive citizens. Excessive bureaucracy, he said, stymied federal efforts at intensive and novel anti-poverty approaches.

Rey Ramsey, chief executive of One Economy Corporation, a charity that helps low-income communities gain access to information technology, shared the stage with Mr. Gingrich and objected to his use of the word “experiment.”

“Don’t experiment with me, meet me halfway,” he said, suggesting that philanthropy should listen to what people in troubled communities say they need.

— Brennen Jensen

Tuesday May 6, 2008 | Permalink

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