Remember America's Giving Challenge, that great test of online fundraising sponsored by the Case Foundation and Parade Magazine a couple of years ago? With more than 80,000 people contributing $1.7 million, it went a long way toward proving Jean Case's assertion that "Small amounts of money given by large numbers of individuals can be combined to do great things."

This is the very last of my 2009 NTC Preview podcasts. It's also the longest, because Vince is a very interesting guy, with a lot of interests and a talent for connecting people and ideas.

Vince is leading the 2009 NTC session, "Fundster: How Philanthropy is Adapting Social Network Practice". You may remember America's Giving Challenge. Or maybe you've already voted in the NetSquared Challenge. This is the sort of thing we're talking about -- transparent philanthropy driven by the people. The idea of mixing social media and philanthropy certainly has its detractors, but there's no doubt that it's shaking up how we think about funding and fundraising. As Vince says in the podcast, "It's way too early for dogma."

Is the web -- many small pieces loosely joined - making old grantmaking practices in advocacy and democratic engagement obsolete? What does grantmaking in an interactive world look like? The rise of collective knowledge, organizing networks, and the transparency that millions of eyes and voices generate is changing politics (remember Macaca?), economic paradigms, how corporations conduct business, and yet has made precious few inroads into how we, as a third sector, operate -- and that is especially true for funders.

In a world more connected than ever, we are already seeing the next big social transformation - as messy and as iterative and lose as all the movements in history, with strong and persuasive visions but at best highly informal plans. 'Social change' in a connected world is based on an entirely different paradigm than that of the 'strategic plan' and clear 'year-end metrics' that funders demand. In a highly fluid, networked, and iterative world, funding by 'blueprint' becomes meaningless. Read more.