Dr. Lucy Bernholz, a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, visited Pittsburgh in March for two packed days of conversations with funders, Pitt faculty and students, government officials and community activists. A self-described 'philanthropy wonk,' Lucy's current work is focused on what she calls the "social economy" -- defined as the ways we use private resources to create public benefits.
During her stay, Lucy stressed that the social economy includes - but not is limited to - public charities supported by philanthropy. Crowdsourcing platforms, B corps and L3Cs are among the proliferating new vehicles for participating in the social economy. Within the social economy, "digital public goods" (valuable data created by nonprofits, government agencies and others) are being produced at a tremendous pace. However, Lucy pointed out that few leaders in philanthropy, the nonprofit sector or government are tackling the necessary national discussion of about how to regulate the creation and use of the social economy's digital assets.
GWP member Tony Macklin, in his terrific blog post about our community discussions with Lucy, took her observations and questions a step further. He wonders whether we might need to create local or regional "Social Economy Leagues" similar to local chambers of commerce, or "Digital Public Good Trusts" that aggregate digital assets the way community foundations preserve and deploy financial assets. Pittsburgh has been described as the cradle of 20th century philanthropy: maybe our region, or others, can take a leading role in re-inventing how we use private resources for the public good in the future. Check out Lucy's work at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society as well as her blog Philanthropy 2173.