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Lucy Bernholz, Ph.D.

Lucy Bernholz is a Senior Research Scholar at Stanford University’s Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (Stanford PACS) and Director of the Digital Civil Society Lab. She has been a Visiting Scholar at The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and a Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, the Hybrid Reality Institute, and the New America Foundation.

Lucy is the author of numerous articles and books, including the annual Blueprint Series on Philanthropy and the Social Economy, the 2010 publication Disrupting Philanthropy, and her 2004 book Creating Philanthropic Capital Markets: The Deliberate Evolution. She is a co-editor of Philanthropy in Democratic Societies (2016, Chicago University Press) and of the forthcoming volume Digital Technology and Democratic Theory. She writes extensively on philanthropy, technology, and policy on her award winning blog, philanthropy2173.com.

Lucy studied history and has a B.A. from Yale University, where she played field hockey and captained the lacrosse team, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University.

Posts by Lucy Bernholz, Ph.D.

Talk Europe! with Lucy Bernholz: Philanthropy in the Digital Age

In an interview with ERST Foundation, Lucy Bernholz calls on Europe to impart to tech platforms a set of standards that uphold the ideals of democracy.

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What Happens if We Ignore the Warning Signs of Change?

In the last of a five-part series, Lucy Bernholz identifies larger, contextual shifts that are shaping philanthropy and digital civil society.

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Harry Potter at the Crossroads: We Need New Open Systems

As Lucy Bernholz writes, we need to lose the old-fashioned concept of going online and address how and why we’re controlled by our digital systems.

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Where Is Digital Civil Society in 2020?

As civil society is now digital we face new decisions at every level, from the individual to the organizational. Who and what will we be?

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Building the Blueprint: Digital Civil Society Speaks

People from around the world share their thoughts on digital civil society, why it matters, and what makes them hopeful about it.

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Digital as a Given: The Landscape of Digital Civil Society

Lucy Bernholz lays out a vision of digital civil society and the cycles of change society has experienced as we become more dependent on digital systems.

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Nonprofits and Artificial Intelligence

The real question for nonprofits and foundations is not how will they use AI, but how is AI being used within the domains within which they work and how must they respond?

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Predict-a-palooza: Civil Society Forecast 2019

Podcast and Transcript: An expert panel and our virtual audience forecast the most important trends and challenges facing digital civil society in 2019.

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Flipping Our Algorithmic Assumptions

When it comes to solving social ills with algorithms, is optimism the enemy? “We should assume they will be discriminatory,” writes Lucy Bernholz. “There is no ‘clean room’ for social innovation.”

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#GivingTuesday Data Collaborative

Podcast and Transcript: Lucy Bernholz, Asha Curran, and Josh Levy discuss building a governance plan and digital infrastructure for giving data worldwide.

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