The Chronicle of Philanthropy has just published an interview with us by Ian Wilhelm.
The hot topic, of course, was the financial market meltdown and the impact on philanthropy, which was the subject of an article in the New York Times yesterday. We argued that, with a few exceptions, the rich are likely to come out of this mess better than others and that the need for their philanthropy is going to be greater than ever.
The Chronicle were also interested to get our response to critics from inside the philanthropy business who think the techniques of the philanthrocapitalists are inappropriate for the nonprofit world. We think this critique is largely based on a narrow caricature of the philanthrocapitalists but we do acknowledge that philanthrocapitalism is a disruptive force, which is no bad thing. As Joel Fleishman described in his outstanding The Foundation: A Great American Secret, philanthropy may have achieved a lot but it has also underperformed. Philanthrocapitalism could help philanthropy to live up to its potentail.