Welcome!
I have been working in and around organized philanthropy since 1987. One of the challenges we have as a field is that we often don't take the time to reflect on our work, and even when we do, those insights are rarely written down and shared with our colleagues. The intent of this website is to share some of the writing I've done over the years in one accessible location.
Some of these pieces have been publicly circulated (e.g. via The California Wellness Foundation's excellent website) while others are internal memos that have typically only been seen by a very limited audience. I have decided to share them here (some in edited form) in the hope that they might be useful to others who are doing this work.
I've listed an institutional affiliation on many of these pieces as a way of gratefully acknowledging the support I've received from my former employers. However, readers should not view these pieces as statements of current institutional policies or practice. I am solely responsible for the content of each document.
I have grouped the documents by theme in downloadable PDF format. I encourage you to reproduce them and share them with your colleagues, and would appreciate proper citation when you do. For music lovers, I've also included a sampling of my annual holiday Top Ten lists for your listening enjoyment. If you have comments or thoughts on any of the contents of this website, I'd love to hear from you.
Namaste.
Tom David