Where Domestic and International Philanthropy Meet

[Editor’s note: With the Council’s Family Philanthropy Conference set to begin on Sunday, January 31, we asked our 21 conference bloggers to tell us a question they think family philanthropy needs to explore as the San Diego conference begins. Here’s Dien Yuen's answer. Yuen is director of Philanthropy at Give2Asia.]

I am excited about attending the upcoming Family Philanthropy Conference in San Diego this weekend. While I have attended the Council on Foundations’ Annual Conference for several years, this will be my first time attending the Family Conference. My interest in attending the conference is to find out how families are incorporating domestic and international philanthropy and how they approach their implementation and evaluation process as an entity.

I have met many families that support the community they currently live in. Several of them also support charitable projects overseas. The reasons they support overseas organizations and projects are diverse and many subjectively and passionately have done so for many years. However, as the philanthropic field moves towards quests for efficiency, impact and accountability, many advisors, like me, are looking for ways to help our clients/donors answer these questions in an international context.

My current, simplified approach in addressing my question is to separate the process into two “buckets.” The first bucket is the most important and includes the strategic questions such as vision, mission and purpose. The second bucket is the tactical processes such as project identification, implementation and evaluation. Each step, within the buckets, requires reference back to the vision and purpose before it is passed through the domestic and international lens. Surrounding the two buckets is a dotted outer circle and what I call “technology efficiency.” By using technology, we can not only save time but allow opportunities for collaboration and instantaneous feedback and approval.

At the conference, I hope to meet others and learn how they are approaching the dual geographic focus. Questions I have are:

• How does the family decide on domestic vs. international; is it a 50/50 or 60/40 or some other split?
• Does each family member decide on a project of their own choosing?
• How do you locate projects overseas?
• What advisors, if any, do you turn to?
• Is a project that supports a women’s education in the U.S. evaluated similarly to one in India? If not, what would the indicators, variables and allocations be?

If you have any suggestions or advice, please come up and say hello. Let’s co-create several posts on lessons learned at the conference!