EPIP Bay Area: 10.2010

Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
1661 Page Mill Road
Palo Alto, CA 94304

Ben Binswanger, Vice President of Programs and Impact, Skoll Foundation
Interviewed by Meaghan Calcari, Program Officer, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

Ben Binswanger oversees the Skoll Foundation’s strategic grantmaking program, identifying and supporting the work of social entrepreneurs worldwide who are driving large-scale change on pressing social and environmental issues. As part of the executive team, he helps shape the Foundation’s overall strategy to maximize the leverage of its philanthropic capital.

Ben has held a range of senior positions across the business, government, and social change sectors. Most recently, he served as Chief Operating Officer and Senior Advisor to the Case Foundation, working directly with Jean and Steve Case to develop the programs, initiatives, and support systems for the foundation. Before entering the philanthropic sector, Ben was Vice President, Community and Employee Engagement at Time Warner, heading up efforts to establish the company as a global leader in employee engagement. Earlier, he served as Vice President, Corporate Communications, for America Online, handling many of the company’s internal and external strategic communications initiatives. He also held the lead corporate communications role at TeleSpectrum Worldwide, a direct marketing company, and served as Director, Business Development at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

Ben began his career in the political realm, serving as a political advisor and campaign manager for Senator Edward Kennedy between 1987 and 1995. He managed national political issues for the Senator and assisted legislative staff with implementation of political, communications, and legislative strategies on a wide range of domestic policy issues. He co-managed Senator Kennedy’s 1988 re-election campaign and also worked for several other candidates, including Senators George Mitchell and John Kerry, in a variety of management and communication roles.

After the event, join us for happy hour from 5:00 to 6:30.

South Bay Speaker Series
Learn more about how seasoned leaders at prominent South Bay foundations made their way into their present roles. Foundation representatives from the William and Flora Hewlett, Gordon and Betty Moore, David and Lucile Packard, and Skoll Foundations will share the paths they have taken to their current leadership roles, the unique aspects of their organizations’ grantmaking and the role they feel that emerging leaders can play in the sector. Please stay tuned to future announcements in the coming months. To RSVP, please email bayarea@epip.org by Monday, October 25, 2010.

Can Business Save the World?

Join Bay Area EPIP for a conversation around philanthrocapitalism and whether this approach is well-suited for social and environmental change.

Featuring former Ford Foundation Director Michael Edwards

Author of Small Change: Why Business Won’t Save the World

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Mitchell Kapor Foundation

543 Howards Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco

3:30 - 5:45 PM

Discussion will begin at 4:00, preceded and followed by time to meet other attendees

Small Change has stirred up some discussion in our field about the concept of philanthrocapitalism, calling into question the idea that philanthropy pursued in business like fashion can in solve the ills of today's world. In his new book Michael Edwards challenges the notion that the market is capable of solving social inequities; he writes about how a market approach hurts more than it helps and that in fact real change will come when business acts more like civil society, not the other way around.

Michael Edwards is an independent writer and activist based in upstate New York who is affiliated with the New York-based think-tank Demos, and the Brooks World Poverty Institute at Manchester University in the UK. From 1999 to 2008 he was the Director of the Ford Foundation's Governance and Civil Society Program in New York, having previously worked for the World Bank, Oxfam-GB, Save the Children-UK and other NGOs in Washington DC, London, Colombia, Zambia, Malawi, and India. His writings have helped to shape a more critical appreciation of the global role of philanthropy and civil society, and to break down barriers between researchers and activists across the world. Michael was educated in England at the universities of Oxford and London, and now lives with his wife Cora in the farmhouse they renovated together in the foothills of the Catskill mountains.

RSVP at http://epipphilanthrocapitalism.eventbrite.com/