On Human Creativity and the Liberal Arts: Walter Isaacson on Philanthropy

Posted on: May 7th, 2015

By Rick Cohen   |   Nonprofit Quarterly

At the 2015 annual meeting of the Council on Foundations, the opening plenary’s star speaker was Walter Isaacson, the Chair and CEO of the Aspen Institute. His speech was delivered in TED-talk style, which seems to be the public speaking mode of many top speakers nowadays (Arthur Brooks, the CEO of the American Enterprise Institute, did the same at the conference). Those of us who are still dependent on things like notes and daises and such are quite envious, to be sure.

While much of what Isaacson addressed on the subject of collaboration was generically applicable enough to most attendees to garner him a standing ovation from the audience and gushing comments in the hallways, one point that didn’t seem to get a lot of COF attendee notice was particularly interesting—though we’ve heard Isaacson address it before in almost the same manner. See full article>>