Pierre Omidyar is the luncheon keynote at the second annual Conference of Nonprofit Communities of Hawai`i. Pierre is an entrepreneur and philanthropist who is best known as the founder of eBay. In addition to his company, Pierre has had a significant impact in philanthropy – giving away over a billion dollars in the last few years. In Hawaii specifically, he and his wife Pam have given $50 million over six years to the Hawaii Community Foundation, which is considered to be the largest single gift ever given in the state by living donors.
These are the insights Pierre shared with us at lunch, as interviewed by Kelvin Taketa, President of the Hawaii Community Foundation.
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The first phase of eBay’s philanthropy
Pierre experienced huge growth at eBay for the first few years. As they prepared for the IPO, his team talked about involving the community in their financial growth. They initially created the eBay Foundation (driven by Jeff Skoll) as they realized that they had far more money than anyone could put to use personally. Early on, Pierre talked to Ashoka Founder Bill Drayton, who told him, “Whatever you do, don’t create a foundation.” But of course, that’s what he did.
The Foundation was the first phase of Pierre’s philanthropy.
The next phase: philanthropy as investment
After a while, Pierre began to feel constrained in eBay’s gifts because they could only give to nonprofits. He wanted to be able to do grantmaking as well as make investments in positive social change.
So, Pierre started Omidyar Network in 2004. Also created subsequent organizations: Humanity United, HopeLab, and Ulupono Initiative. Their partners are what allow them to have such an impact on the world. They help Pierre to bring more capital into organizations to help serve more people – especially in the microfinance space.
More recently, Pierre founded Civil Beat, a publication to help make Hawaii a better place. It’s progressive journalism on what’s really happening in Hawaii – investigating the questions people want answers to. (Note: I had a piece published in Civil Beat recently, It’s Time for All Hands on Deck in Hawaii’s Nonprofit Sector)
Why he chose to invest in social good
The challenge of making an impact. The opportunity to use new tools to make it happen. As a technologist, bringing for-profit innovation to the field of social change. People today – especially young people – have a much higher expectation of transparency from organizations.
There’s a difference between charity and philanthropy – and we need both. We need to address the causes – need to take a long view. The status quo is so powerful – very hard to change systems. Pierre has spent a lot of time mapping systems so he knows where to go to make a difference.
“That’s why we give multi-year grants – we want long-term relationships with our grantees. The only way we can have an impact in the world is in working through others. We look at it as a partnership. Grantees enable us to have the impact we want to have.”
On the partnership with Hawaii Community Foundation
Pierre saw that Hawaii was about to go through a tough financial period - needed charity to help address direct needs to stabilize the community. Got involved with the Island Innovation Fund. With the Innovation Fund, you can see who else applied and who gets the money. This opens it up for new opportunities for collaboration in the sector.
On taking risks in philanthropy
“Risk is a part of creating something new. If you want to create something new, you have to take risks. People have a really hard time envisioning what will happen if they fail. But in Silicon Valley, we have a different approach – if you haven’t tried something and falied and learned from it, why would I want to work with you?”
Standard of success for foundations is that 100% of grants given were successful. This is unreasonable. The philanthropic sector needs to be able to take more risks – not everything has to be a success.
On the role of a nonprofit board
Most important role of a nonprofit board is to make the nonprofit more effective. Beyond fiduciary responsibility, you need to bring the business experience you have to the board and help drive the team toward results. If you had to do just one thing, ensure that the management is clear on what it’s measuring and when they’re meeting its goals. Don’t take your business hat off when you go into the nonprofit boardroom.
On hiring good people
Given the scale of the challenges that we’re working on, the attribute I look for the most is the ability to deal with ambiguity and a sense of the person’s values - respect, service, humility are really critical. Finding leaders who can deal with ambigous environments and embody these essential values.
On the role of social media in philanthropy
We’re hyperconnected now. The power of connecting people together has a tremendous leverage effect. Social media helps people manage over 150 relationships. If technology has allowed us to maintain contact with others, remarkable things will happen. People are inherently good, so the more connected we are, the more we are likely to want to make a difference. Young people are coming out of college wanting to make the world a better place, though not necessarily in a nonprofit.
On young people and leadership
It’s very important that young people see leadership positions open up to them. What’s the point of developing 20 and 30 year-olds when all the leadership roles are taken up by 50 and 60 year-olds? We have to be mindful of our assumptions that we need people with the most experiences – that means our organizations’ staff will always skew older.
Pierre hopes to create a leadership development program in Hawaii. “Do we have enough leaders to solve the problems we have today? I don’t think so. We need more development programs.” Pierre highlighted the White House Fellows Program where he is a commissioner.
The following was the final question to Pierre, posed by someone from the audience. His initial response resonated quite deeply with me. So simple, yet so profound.
How has your work changed you?
“It has made me more hopeful about the future of humanity.”
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You can view the archive of the entire live stream of Pierre’s keynote on the Civil Beat website.
