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Articles about foundations aren’t typically as full of barbs as Marc Gunther’s long piece on the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) in the most recent edition of the Stanford Social Innovation Review. That makes it an entertaining read, but the underlying debate — about the role of community foundations — makes it an important one.
Some of the tough talk comes from Gunther, who harshly critiques SVCF CEO Emmett Carson and his apparent unwillingness to guide donors to focus on pressing issues in the local community. Carson, Gunther asserts, “has done nothing that could be called bold or innovative.” Gunther faults SVCF, which has grown dramatically and now has more than $8 billion in assets, most in the form of donor-advised funds (DAFs), for “how little this seemingly huge foundation reflects the ambition and spirit of Silicon Valley.”
“The smart money said we couldn’t do it. The smart money said it would fail. The New York Times ran an article that said my days were numbered,” Gunther quotes Carson as saying. But, Carson tells Gunther, “we have exceeded everyone’s expectations on every metric you can have.”