(photo credit: Steve Jurvetson)

Or, maybe, “Bill Gates learns to give to learn to teach so kids can learn?” Or something like that…

What we’re getting at here is that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, by far the biggest charitable foundation in the world, has given away billions of dollars total, and hundreds of millions to education, however, they’ve had little measurable impact in the last ten years on the one thing they were really trying to change – how many kids from disadvantaged neighborhoods are going to college.

Luckily, the last 10 years in schools have taught Bill Gates something – that he needs to learn more! Taking an idea from the private sector and applying it to education, the Gates Foundation thinks that a little R&D is exactly what the educational system needs to come up with innovative solutions to its big problems. And that’s where he’s going to put his money now.

It turns out that the business world and non-profit world aren’t so different. A lot of what we do spending and growing our money has real impact on society and the environment, and things we do in one are of our financial lives can apply to other areas in new and cool ways.

It’s not always just about giving more, but about learning to give better.

Lawrence-Herchenroether Dance Company, artists-in-residence at Girard College and Mascher Space Cooperative, is a Philadelphia-based modern dance company that produces the work of choreographer Tori Lawrence. By emphasizing the creative process, the Lawrence-Herchenroether Dance Company strives to create a shared experience between the performers and audience members. Continuously exploring the dynamic relationship among movement, perception, and environment, the company works towards creating choreography that is surprising, thoughtful, and honest. Co-founders Tori Lawrence and Emily Herchenroether stopped communing with their audiences long enough to answer a few of our questions about supporting the arts…

TILE: Why is it important to support the arts?
Tori & Emily: Art opens up conversations and new ways of looking at things. It encourages dialogue between the creator and the perceiver, helping to push and challenge us as individuals and as communities. It helps us progress as beings to more deeply relate to the world and the environment around us.

TILE: What’s it like to run your own show as an independent modern dance company?
Tori & Emily: We become intimately aware of all of the details that go into a live production that aren’t related to the art. Examples are marketing, fund-raising, grant writing, rehearsal/performance space rental, etc. You have to realize that you’re providing a full experience for the audience rather than solely the work or choreography itself.

There’s also a lot of problem solving and awareness of all of the expenses that go into forming a dance company. Finding a way to balance your needs and limited funds is hard and we’re still trying to figure it out. We have come to realize that we are business owners that have branded a company as well as artists that have branded a voice.

TILE: We hear a lot about how artists of all ages are struggling financially to bring their work to life. What kind of advice would you give to young people who want to help out by supporting the arts?
Tori & Emily: Our advice: Go to shows and experience art (whether they be concerts, gallery openings, dance performances, jams, etc.). Find someone whose work moves you or strikes you in a certain way. I would recommend concentrating your funds in that one person/company and one area rather than spreading it to a group of different artists/companies.

Deep investment is better than a broad investment in art because you make more of an impact and you can experience the effects of your donation more easily. Deep investment in one artist or one company encourages longevity and sustainability.

TILE: As young performing artists, what kind of role would you like to see your own art and that of others playing in the future?
Tori & Emily: Bringing the audience to be more engaged in our art (a mind/body/soul engagement). In our site-specific dance performances, we prod, poke, and allow those deep/inner questions to surface. Hopefully the worlds that we create can inspire our audience members to become more engaged with their surroundings.

TILE: We can all learn from each other, so… what’s the biggest financial mistake you’ve ever made?
Tori & Emily: We rented a space inside an outmoded power plant for one of our shows at the Philly Fringe last year. Our performance involved a lot of water. At the end of the performance, we didn’t have the appropriate resources to clean up the water and dirt that we left behind, so we ended up being penalized for not thoroughly cleaning the space.
What we learned: Be aware of the risks that you take when you put down a deposit for a performance venue.

Be clear ahead of time what’s expected of you to get the deposit back so that you can do what’s expected and not lose money unnecessarily.

>> TILE brings you exclusive opinions, explanations, and interviews from experts in every industry.

(image source: http://usdebt.kleptocracy.us/)

Ever wondered how many Benjamins can fit in a football stadium?

As the debt ceiling (quickly) approaches and the government (hopefully) nears some sort of resolution, we just thought we’d help you get a handle on what all these ginormous (fact: ginormous is actually a word) numbers look like.

You can also check out this infographic and this one if you want to learn more about where the debt came from and exactly whose debt it is.

(image credit: webtreats)

You know how (old) people are always saying that “texting and Facebook are the end of the world because kids can’t write anymore and say ‘u’ instead of ‘you,’ blah blah blah?” (like, omg, it’s nbd…)

Well, the SEC is now taking issue with the way Groupon and other start-ups are reporting their finances. Groupon, which is preparing for its IPO (i.e. selling shares of itself to the general public), is using some new – and misleading, according to a lot of financial experts and regulators – terminology to talk about how much money they are worth.

Other web and social media start-ups have done this sort of thing in the past – like talking about “eyeballs” (the number of people who view a website) instead of dollars to demonstrate a company’s value. However, some are saying Groupon is going too far, and others are saying stuff like “eyeballs” should never have been put next to traditional financial metrics in the first place.

So, do you think this is just an example of old finance not really getting the new way stuff works, or are Groupon and Zynga trying to punk us?

(image credit: SENSEable City Lab at MIT)

Ever wanted to see where your stuff goes after you throw it out? We’re not talking about touring landfills here – we mean literally seeing its whole path and trajectory in Technicolor.

Well, a new exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York is displaying the fruits of two MIT researchers’ trash-tracking labor. Carlo Ratti and Assaf Biderman developed these little trackers that tell you in real time where something is for a whole year. And then they did something really cool with them…

They gave the trackers to people to attach to anything they were about to throw out – from fruit to furniture – and turned all that data into cool and colorful visualizations like the one you see up there (^^). The idea is that maybe people will start to pay attention to their trash, or figure out new and better ways to deal with it.

Pretty cool. Or, rather, pretty and cool…

What do you do with your old electronic gadgets?

Pamela Vail is a performer, choreographer, improviser and teacher. She is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Franklin & Marshall College, and also performs with several professional dance companies and creates her own choreography. To sample some of her work, visit architectsdance.org or acanarytorsi.org.

TILE: It’s a big question, but what does money have to do with the arts?
Pam: Everything and nothing, actually. The reality is that artists need money to make and produce art, but the actual soul of art has nothing to do with money. Art is creative expression.

TILE: From your perspective, what kind of support are artists really looking for?
Pam: I think artists are looking for support on a number of levels: for people to simply come see their work; for general advocacy – that people actually care that they can and do make work; emotional support; and, of course, financial support.

(more…)

(image credit: Collaborative Consumption)

But isn’t that like, communism, man?

Not exactly – people still own things and are making a profit from them, and that’s sort of the point.

Technology (i.e. the Internet) is allowing regular people like you and me to share their skills, stuff or space with the world – for profit. New websites and services like TaskRabbit, SkillShare and Airbnb (and even old stuff like eBay and Craigslist) allow people to take advantage of stuff they own or stuff they can do by lowering barriers-to-entry.

But, wait, if, like, everyone can easily buy and sell stuff, isn’t that at least, like, socialism, man?

Not exactly.

Think a career track means only one destination? Well… you’re wrong. Listen to how Maryann Fernandez arrived at Philanthropy Indaba:

(source: nytimes.com)

“Oh my god. Ohhh my god. Apple. Apple!!!!!!!”

– Intern Spencer, screaming as he watched the price of everyone’s favorite mega-corporation skyrocket to almost $400 per share.

(Just for fun, compare that with a maximum price of $9.54 per share in 2001.)

The reason for the sudden spike? Apple released its quarterly earnings report* on Tuesday evening, showing a record $28.57 billion in revenue. That’s $28.57 billion. In three months.

In the handy graph above, you can see investors getting excited about the upcoming earnings announcement on Monday and Tuesday, and then pretty much exploding with enthusiasm on Tuesday night.

What else would you expect from a company that has enough cash to buy almost every other mobile phone maker in the world, and that has enough fans in China to support an entire industry of counterfeit Apple stores?

* In the U.S., all publicly traded companies are required to produce earnings reports which disclose their sales numbers and net profit over the prior three months.)