Grassroots Philanthropy

Drawing on his many years of experience in the field, philanthropist Bill Somerville offers his vision for how the foundation world can reenergize their grantmaking processes, which have become bogged down by endless paperwork, bureaucracy, and listless foundation heads. His ''cowboy'' approach is to actively engage with the community, meet people who are doing extraordinary things, and fund them quickly--with a minimum of process and paperwork. He encourages foundations to take calculated risks and to fund ideas for actual change, rather than fact-finding reports that exhaustively sum up what’s wrong with the world. Somerville's style is straightforward, urgent, emphatic, and persuasive, and this is a book that will likely end up in the hands of every foundation head in the country.