Giving Compass' Take:

• Andres Spokoiny, writing for Medium, suggests ways in which funders can be effective in their philanthropy after a tragedy, including creating a long-term plan to support community resilience.

• How can organizations encourage this type of giving from funders and individual donors? 

• Read about these teachable moments from the Pittsburgh shooting. 

Looking at the pictures from Pittsburgh, I wished that the sorrow I felt could ease the unspeakable burden of grief faced by the families and loved ones directly touched.

In this time of anguish and fear, people will look to us for support, resources, and guidance. They will seek our empathy but also our calming leadership. So we need to give time and space for our emotions, but simultaneously, we need to seek a thoughtful and strategic response to this tragedy.

Here are some elements in what a thoughtful philanthropic response might look like:

  • Balance immediate response with long-term planning: Funders need to assist in the immediate aftermath, but they have a critical role in being strategically invested in the long term.  There are many issues that will need attention in the weeks and months to come, from the fallout of trauma to security needs to community resilience.
  • Hardening targets while remaining welcoming: The challenge will be, in the next weeks and months, to find a model that can articulate security and openness, protection and homeliness.
  • Analysis and research: As funders, we need to invest more in researching, understanding, and fighting this brand of hatred that has proven extremely deadly for Jews and gentiles.
  • Advocacy and political action: Ultimately, meaningful change necessitates public policies, government funding, and political backing.
  • Communication, partnership, and cooperation: Funders and organizations rush to help and the lack of coordination and communication makes the response less than optimal.

Read the full article about philanthropy after terror by Andres Spokoiny at Medium