The Future of Philanthropy
演讲人：Sally Osberg萨利·奥斯伯格
My fellow idealists，I am honored and delighted to be here with you today.It was a special pleasure to be able to accept your dean"s invitation as I"m a great admirer of Joel Podolny.Joel was one of my boss Jeff Skoll"s favorite professors at Stanford"s Graduate School of Business，and one of the first serious academics to take the business of social change seriously.
Probably most of the folks in this room are up to speed on Joel"s most recently published work on status.I caught his recent NPR interview on my commute drive home a couple of weeks ago.The gist of what he had to say about his new book was that hanging out with the right crowd sends pretty powerful signals about credibility-whether you"re an individual or a company.I"m already feeling smarter and a whole lot more credible hanging out with you and with Joel！Thanks again forinviting me.
The subject I was asked to address is the future of philanthropy.I told Joel that I was no oracle，but more like the Chinese sage who said that to prophesy is extremely difficult-especially about the future.
What I am clear about is the dimension of the challenges before us：
"More than any other time in history，mankind faces a crossroads.One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness，the other，to total extinction.Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly."The prophet of doom here，of course，is Woody Allen.Black humor？Not if you"re paying attention.Most trends-climate change，the growing global chasm between rich and poor，the rise of fundamentalism，and the prospect of new pandemics-are not headed in the right direction.Add in hurricanes，earthquakes，and tsunamis，and it"s astonishing that any of us gets out of bed in the morning.
But get out of bed we do-because we hold in our hearts and in our heads the vision of a better world.Such vision has always been the horizon which defines philanthropy，distinguishing it from charity，which focuses on addressing immediate need.As for strategic philanthropy of the kind we have been discussing today，it"s worth reminding ourselves that the term may be something of an oxymoron-strategy deriving from stratagem，a successful maneuver in war，and philanthropy meaning love of humankind.
At the Skoll Foundation，the comer of organized philanthropy I know best，we"re right there-integrating the discipline and plotting of strategy with the domain of the heart.Let me tell you a bit about who we are and how we go about our work：I"ll tackle some of the myths about philanthropy，highlight a couple of the more interesting trends，and close with a story.
In closing，I"d like to tell you about one of the remarkable people we"re supporting.Victoria Hale"s bio reads like a classic profile for a social entrepreneur.After earning her Ph.D.in Pharmaceutical Chemistry，Victoria worked as a research scientist in the government and private sectors，establishing her expertise at the Food and Drug Administration and at Genentech，and earning her entrepreneur"s stripes as Co.founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Axiom Biomedical，Inc...
In 1998，Victoria quit her job，had her second child，and began to investigate establishing the world"s first nonprofit pharmaceutical company-one that could access IP sitting latent on the shelves of all the big drug companies，IP capable of addressing neglected diseases in the developing world-and entirely incapable of generating so much as a break-even financial return.Call it what you will-a market failure，a market gap，or just market status quo-for Victoria Hale，it was a reality she simply refused to accept.