This week foundations, international grantmaking institutions, individual donors and global Southern activities have gathered in San Francisco for the Grantmakers Without Borders (Gw/oB) annual conference. As Gw/oB marks its 10th anniversary, its conference participants continue to focus on issues of social justice, gender equity and reproductive rights, agro-ecological production and food security, and human rights. Emerging issues – such as LGBTIQ movements and the ongoing humanitarian and development needs in Haiti – have also generated strong interest.

Last week’s a group of five philanthropic institutions – the Skoll Foundation, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, the Omidyar Network, Open Social Foundation's Special Fund for Poverty Alleviation, and John and Ann Doerr's Family Foundation – announced that they will provide an additional $45 million in matching funds to support the Social Innovation Fund.

On Thursday, the Corporation for National and Community Service (the Corporation) held a media advisory conference call to provide details about the Social Innovation Fund. Paul Carttar, Director of the Social Innovation Fund, and Marta Urquilla, Senior Advisor for Social Innovation, framed the conference call as an opportunity to provide details about grant application process and next steps. Following the call, the Corporation released a press release on the SIF process and a link to the conference call audio (which will be up for about 30 days).

Earlier this month Jane Wales of the Aspen Institute wrote a post published in the Huffington Post about a possible populist threat to philanthropy. In her piece, she stated her faith that foundations will continue to do their best to create social benefits, but "the way in which they do it must take into account the public mood, and even distrust." Sadly, the populist threat and backlash against philanthropy may already be on exhibit in California.

On Tuesday, Bill Gates posted a short Tweet: "Headed to TED - http://bit.ly/brwfV1 - I will be sending notes and taking your questions. Send them to @BillGates and tag them #BillatTED." On Friday, some of those questions will be answered via a video feed following his TED presentation on energy and climate change. (UPDATE: The video link is here.)

As is typical with a Bill Gates Tweet, the post was retweeted and referenced a lot. The questions submitted have also been interesting to review. Using the webstie What the Hashtag?!, I  pulled together a listing of most of the questions submitted in advance of Friday's presentation at TED. Of the nearly 500 tweets using the Hashtag, approximately 70 or so where actual questions. The rest were retweets, nonsensical questions or personal pleas, and comments.