The Agitator rested on Valentine’s Day this year. However, while we were eating our chocolates, Cupid delivered a thought-provoking message to our inbox in the form of an opinion piece from Jennifer and Peter Buffett, co-presidents of the NoVo Foundation, appearing in last week’s Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Before we get to the Valentine, a reminder about the Buffetts. They’re into nothing short of transformation when it comes to charity (a word they don’t like). As we noted in an earlier post on Peter Buffet, titled Money to My Ears, they want to break the status quo mold:

“What we have is a crisis of imagination. Albert Einstein said that you cannot solve a problem with the same mind-set that created it. Foundation dollars should be the best “risk capital” out there …

“Money should be spent trying out concepts that shatter current structures and systems that have turned much of the world into one vast market. Is progress really Wi-Fi on every street corner? No. It’s when no 13-year-old girl on the planet gets sold for sex. But as long as most folks are patting themselves on the back for charitable acts, we’ve got a perpetual poverty machine.”

This Valentine’s Day the Buffets are wondering why the concept of ‘love’ is almost never discussed in our sector. They’re not talking about some fuzzy emotion or even tinkering with key emotions like ‘passion’ and ‘commitment’.

Rather they’re urging that we all start concentrating on the need to focus on the true meaning and definition of philanthropy — ‘love of humanity’.

The Buffets are putting their money where their heart is and undertaking a form of alchemy. “In a world in which everything is a commodity, we’re going to try to turn money into love. Into trust. Into safety. The first elements in a periodic table of relationships.”

Here’s some of the conversation they’d like to get us all involved in and The Agitator’s all for it:

• Love means understanding we don’t have solutions to the problems we hope to solve. The real breakthroughs come from the people who live with those challenges every day. Those most affected by the problem most often hold the solution.

• Neither love nor money does very well being locked up. If money isn’t moving in our sector it’s usually because of fear. If we are inspired by love we should challenge ourselves to spend more of our assets to move money where it’s needed – now.

• Love means actively seeking out collaboration and partnerships with others, “rather than rushing to claim credit for one’s self or one’s own organization”.

• Love means investing in people because it’s people who create lasting change. This means embracing mistakes, not simply paying lip service to the need for experimentation or risk.

• Love means accepting that the human capacity, human relationships and human happiness that go with social change is never easy to measure.

In fast-changing times when more and more is expected and needed from our sector, the solution, as the Buffets note, “is not to sew faster but to find new material. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, it’s been here all along. And the road starts by leading with our hearts.”

Belated Happy — and Thoughtful — Valentine’s Day to all Agitators.

Roger and Tom