Christmas Gifts Year-Round
BUSINESS WEEK -- What better spirit of Christmas than to continue giving year-round? That's part of the idea of the richest 31-year-old in history, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, as he gives away $10 billion dollars. His ideas
about philanthropy are as disruptive as eBay was to online commerce. Instead of investing purely in nonprofits, the Omidyar
Network also invests in for-profit companies. And the profits from those ventures cycles back into social capital investment.
You can see the direction Omidyar takes by watching partnership announcements at Omidyar.net. The Omidyar Network focuses on grants to individuals who are already creating social change through their nonprofits--hence the Creative Commons gets money from the foundation.
The disussions on the Omidyar Network boggle the imagination. You could join the 2500 users, 154 groups, add to 1530 discussion topics, be counted among the 13727 comments on 1867 workspace pages. The Irish government could take a page out ot Omidyar's book--totally realigning government agencies who exist solely to redistribute wealth.
Business Week -- "The eBay Way" and an online "talk with Pierre Omidyar."
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