Today the AVC blog has a story about their portfolio company Kickstarter joining President Obama and the UN to fund raise for Middle East refugee relief. This is an interesting "partnership" for several reasons:
- The U.S. Government believes that significant capital can be raised for traditional government activities through private sector crowd funding.
- The Government believes that a private sector crowd funding is faster and less expensive than a legislative effort
My takeaways from this:
- The Obama presidency does not believe they can pass refugee fundraising legislature and have opted to use their expertise in social media instead. Effectively the President has become a moral authority like the Pope without the resources to act.
- This initiative could have happened without the U.S. Government and the UN involved. If Kickstarter had initiated the campaign they could have chosen their own execution partners. I hope Kickstarter learns how to do these campaigns without government and multilateral partners. The challenge is in the execution in country and picking the right partners.
- This example is further proof that the private sector can disrupt government and reduce its scope.