Technology and Philanthropy Merge at Davos

DAVOS, Switzerland — Saying there are a lot of rich people in attendance at the World Economic Forum is like noting that there is a lot of water in the ocean. So where there are millionaires and billionaires, there is also talk of philanthropy.

Technology was the central theme during a philanthropic roundtable, aptly called “e-philanthropy,” that was hosted by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation here on Friday.

The panel began with a discussion of mobile payments and the role they can play in enabling people to give small amounts of money to causes. This was almost impossible in the days of paper checks, envelopes and stamps.

Alec Ross, a senior adviser on innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, discussed a program the government developed after the Haiti earthquake in 2010. Mr. Ross said the State Department put together a mobile initiative that allowed people to send a text message with the word “Haiti” to a phone number, donating $10 to relief efforts.

“We thought we would raise a couple of hundred thousand dollars,” Mr. Ross said. But instead, the program pulled in $35 million in two weeks. Chelsea Clinton, a special correspondent at NBC and the daughter of former President Bill Clinton, said 50 percent of American households had donated to the Haiti program through mobile phones.

The panelists all agreed that one of the problems with philanthropy and nonprofit groups was the public’s lack of understanding of where the money people gave was being used.

Sean Parker, a founder of Napster and former president of Facebook, cited Charity Water, a nonprofit group that focuses on the need for clean drinking water around the world. He said Charity Water had created online tools that could show people where their donation was being used. Every dollar is digitally accounted for through the nonprofit, Mr. Parker said. Mr. Parker has helped finance Charity Water.

Nonprofits and philanthropies have “to adapt to this new paradigm, they need to create this feedback loop between the giver and the fund,” Mr. Parker said.

Eric E. Schmidt, chairman of Google, said technology and social media allowed people to “tie the fund-raising to the outcome.” People can log in, make a donation and then see the result of that donation, he said.

Mr. Schmidt concluded: ”We don’t need much regulation aside from shame.”

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