One of the key articles in the Summer 2008 issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review is titled Achieving Breakthrough Performance, and is written by Gottfredson, Schaubert, and Babcock (two partners at Bain and one CEO of a nonprofit). In this article, they argue that there are 4 principles that nonprofits should follow to achieve performance.

Susan Towler, the Executive Director of The Blue Foundation for a Healthy Florida, won the iPod Touch drawing at the CoF Summit. The drawing was from the various attendees who filled out the Foundation Impact Survey. Congratulations Susan!!

I recently returned from the new National Harbor development and the Council on Foundations annual summit in Washington, DC. It was a great opportunity for me to learn more about issues facing community, family, and corporate foundations and to hear from leaders in the field on key strategic problems.

In the April 2008 issue of Alliance magazine, a journal dedicated to philanthropy and social investments, Michael Edwards wrote an article about myths and realities of philanthrocapitalism. The title caught my attention, and when I read ahead, Mr. Edwards wrote about his real concern about the amount of money in the philanthropic world that was being dedicated to solving charitable issues with a capitalistic approach. I wrote about a good example of philanthrocapitalism in an earlier blog about Smile Train.