Beyond the grantmaking process, how else has information technology changed the way the Hewlett Foundation works?
I’d say in the creation of standards for philanthropic data. I recently participated in a Council on Foundations task force that focused on this very question. The consensus was that the creation of such standards is a big opportunity. You can read the findings of the task force in this report. The Foundation Center has standards for the data it collects, but beyond that, there really aren’t any well-established, broadly accepted ones for philanthropy. And yet there is more and more need to exchange data, to visualize it, and to map it. The Foundation Center has begun to provide some leadership in this. It’s working on a geographic taxonomy so grantmakers can use a standard to identify where their grant dollars are at work. To date, most have relied on information about the locations where grant dollars are awarded. You might have a grantee with offices in Washington, D.C., that does its work in Africa, so that only tells part of the story. It’s one example in which standards and techn
