Overheard

Blogger Kristin Ivie, a program associate at The Case Foundation, summed it up perfectly: “A new face this year at Council on Foundations is Uncle Sam. In plenaries, on panels, in the audience, members of the federal government are ready to engage in addressing social problems alongside foundations in a new way.” (Read the rest of Ivie’s entry “A New Side of Uncle Sam” from the conference.)

Ivie, along with 18 other invited guest bloggers, shared her ideas, thoughts, and observations on public-philanthropic partnerships (among other topics) at the Council’s Annual Conference in Atlanta.

We encourage you to visit the Council’s blog, Re: Philanthropy, for a comprehensive look at the conference. But here are several video clips, as well as entries from our guest bloggers. These entries illuminate the funny, serious, and poignant conference moments.

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“When you partner with philanthropy, how do you see this sector changing?” asks Council Board Member, Michael Balaoing to Melody Barnes, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. Click the picture above to see the Balaoing-Barnes exchange. Also watch a Director Melody Barnes discussing the social innovation and civic participation policy agenda.

In “Change We Can Count On,” Kaberi Banerjee-Murthy blogs about Melody Barnes’ substantive speech, saying, “she had me walking out of the room with a renewed sense of hope and potential for change.” One of Banerjee-Murthy’s favorite moments during President Bill Clinton’s speech was when he offered his take on when the economic crisis will end. “November 9th at 3:30 in the afternoon,” he predicted, illustrating the impossibly-false precision on any answer.” (Read “What? How Much? How?”)

For blogger Vicki Rosenberg, vice president of Education, Communications and External Relations at the Council of Michigan Foundations, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s speech on the importance of metrics, resonated with her. “I’m a great believer in one of the lessons that I learned in my first Wall Street job: In God we trust; everyone else – bring data,” Bloomberg said. Read Rosenberg’s entry, “Waterfalls in New York?” and watch a clip of Michael Bloomberg addressing conference attendees on the importance of measuring impact.

In Sarita Venkat’s entry, “Obama’s Call to Service,” she reports on Sonal Shah, head of the new Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation at the White House. Shah offered foundations details on the office and its objectives, as well as the newly passed Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. Venkat concludes: “It’s ironic that government is often criticized for its slow-moving ways. Philanthropy will now have to keep up.”

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During his speech, Representative John Lewis (D-GA) urged foundations to “get into trouble.” Blogger Roger Doughty, executive director of the Horizons Foundation, found Lewis’ speech inspirational and cautioned foundations against “the luxury of slow-motion decision-making.” Click the picture above to watch a clip of Representative Lewis and read Doughty’s entry “Not In A Hurry (Still?).”

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Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shared examples of ways the CDC and philanthropy have partnered on preparedness issues. Click the picture above to watch a video clip of Dr. Besser addressing conference attendees. Read what Emmett Carson, president of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, had to say in his entry “Roles in Reform and Emergency.” Read, too, the blog entry “Looking for Partners in Health Care System Reform,” of Ali Webb, program director for Food Systems and Rural Development at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.  Both Carson and Webb comment on Dr. Besser’s and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ speeches.

Time of change or time of crisis? Or so asks blogger Trista Harris, executive director of the Headwaters Foundation for Justice. (Harris also has her own blog.) Harris believes that in this time of crisis, there’s an opportunity and need for change: Now’s “the time to rise up to the potential of what we can become.”