Merle here in San Francisco deeply imbedded in the philanthropic
community this week. Interesting thread you have going, Pamela and
Paul. I am advising donor networks and my new client, an international
environmental foundation (and also raising money for the Madrona
Institute) by talking about applied complexity. I suggest to my folks
that they might use the principles of CAS to change how they make
decisions on grantmaking, and my message appears to be compelling. I
hadn't thought about it before, but I use a lot of metaphors to describe
principles like "path dependency" and "self-organization" etc.
Pamela McCorduck wrote:
Apparently I failed to make myself clear. My informant--as I said, an
historian of philanthropy--mentioned that the *metaphor* of the germ
theory of disease had deeply influenced the big givers at the turn of
the twentieth century (e.g., the Rockefellers, even Carnegie). He
didn't say that they literally thought social "ills" were amenable to
some strict application of the germ theory of disease. They simply
took that point of view as an interesting way to guide their
philanthropies.
I'm asking the second set of questions Paul mentions--how do you apply
complexity theory to institutional philanthropy? As metaphor? As
guiding principles?
Pamela
On Apr 14, 2009, at 5:53 PM, [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> wrote:
Being on the board of a major environment NGO, I think that the
conclusion that donor institutions are motivated by a desire to
mitigate "illnesses" is too broad a generalization. Often donors do
have a vision of what they or the recipient organization are striving
for. This being said, the idea of applying complexity theory to
institutional philanthropy is certainly interesting and perhaps very
useful. How to do it is the question. "Tipping points" and
threshold analysis? Choosing where and how to give most effectively
based on ABMs and emergence? Worth a discussion, particularly by
those seeped in complexity!
Paul
**************
Access 350+ FREE radio stations anytime from anywhere on the web. Get
the Radio Toolbar!
(http://toolbar.aol.com/aolradio/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000002)
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
"To measure the abundance of positrons in cosmic rays, the team used
data from the instrument PAMELA
<http://pamela.roma2.infn.it/index.php>(Payload for Antimatter Matter
Exploration and Light-nuclei Astrophysics), which launched aboard a
Russian satellite in June 2006. Unlike previous antimatter-hunting
instruments, PAMELA can pinpoint not just the type of incoming
particle but also its energy."
WIRED Science
------------------------------------------------------------------------
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
