- Andy Ho
Tomorrow, I will be headed to San Diego for the Council on Foundations Family Philanthropy Conference. This conference is one of the bigger events in philanthropy where family foundation trustees and staff can gather together. After a tumultuous year in 2009 with the volatile stock markets the after-effects of the Madoff scandal, and peering into the abyss of the economic crisis, families are thinking about their philanthropy differently than a year ago. It will be interesting to hear the conversations and thoughts that family trustees have as they face a new decade with new challenges, but also renewed hopes and visions for how philanthropy can make their communities a better place.
As a staff person with the Council, I have been intimately involved with the planning of the conference for the past six months. It's a lot like playing host to a very large dinner party, but on a much bigger scale. So, as a host, I won't enjoy the conference in the same way an attendee might, but such is the nature of my work. I don't anticipate a large Asian American presence here, but that's something to work towards and encourage more Asian American families of wealth to join their peers in the philanthropy network over time.
Dien and I will post our thoughts from the conference. You can also follow our tweets @asiangiving and @andyho. Track the conference on Twitter by following @COF and searching for the hashtag #cof10, and reading the conference blog at blog.cof.org.
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