Action to Match our Words

[Editor's Note: We asked contributors for a final, reflective blog entry from the Atlanta conference. Here's what Emmett had to say.]

As I prepare to depart the Council meeting, I wanted to share several final observations. First, my fears that we would not recognize the seriousness of this moment for philanthropy were happily not realized. From Steve Gunderson’s call for a new era in philanthropy to Bob Franklin’s plea that we become nonconformists to Representative John Lewis’ request for us to get in the way and cause trouble, we said and heard all of the right things. It was music to my ears!

However, my mother used to say that if the words are different than the behavior then believe the behavior. It is now time for our actions to match our words. This will require us to make a lot of changes. We have a wealth of existing resources to tell us how to be good advocates from the Council, the Alliance for Justice, CLPI (center for lobbying in the public interest), Independent Sector and others. What we have to learn is that advocacy is about making demands. In that regard, we have to move beyond being too self pleased and congratulatory that high ranking government officials want to partner with us to making demands of them as to how we want those partnerships to work and the choices we want them to make. This is how the system works.

We also have to remember that advocacy is ideologically neutral and different foundations will be on different sides of the table in advocating what they think is best for America. Again, this is how it should be and our democracy will be stronger for it.

Lastly, I want to congratulate the Council for its efforts to integrate new technology in to the conference. As they learn and grow in this area, my hope is that we will all become more comfortable in using this new medium to ask tough questions, debate with each other and provide real-time honest feedback. After all, this is why these tools were developed in the first place.

Emmett Carson is president of The Silicon Valley Community Foundation.