Salesforce CEO on the Future of Philanthropy

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, has his own ideas about the sweet spot between scale and impact, according to Fortune Magazine.

One is the idea of "integrated philanthropy" which suggests that foundations which are related to corporate entities on some level (presumably assets from stockholders or corporate foundations) lose their most powerful assets when they operate independently.

Some of the most successful foundations in the world today--and, of course, the most successful is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation--do not practice integrated philanthropy. They are fully separate from Microsoft. Of course, they're giving away huge amounts of money and running very interesting programs.

But Microsoft has a lot of very smart people. Bill Gates has spent the majority of his time in the last 30 years picking out the 100,000 smartest people he could find to work at his company. I think that is the most valuable asset you can unleash on the world. Having a foundation that runs entirely on its own, fully separate from the company, is not enough.

Benioff's comments resonate in light of the New York Times front-page article last Sunday (August 13) which announced that the Gates Foundation is doubling its staff to 600 in light of the Buffet infusion. Those numbers are big but they are a far cry from the 100,000 Microsoft brainos and even further from all the folks worldwide who know a thing or two about the problems Gates has committed to making headway against.

"The value for philanthropy here is not the money; it's in these other assets. The technology, the people, the expertise, the volunteerism," he says. Look for more in his new book, out this fall, called: The Business of Changing the World: 20 Great Leaders on Strategic Corporate Philanthropy.

Susan Herr