Author Archive:
Stephen Pittam
The power of money
Six months after I had started working for the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT) a close friend said to me, ‘you have changed – you expect people to listen to you.’ It was a good …
Converting the vision into a grantmaking strategy
Promoting social justice is in the DNA of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT). Almost 150 years ago our founder, Joseph Rowntree, wrote tellingly about his worries about philanthropy: Charity as ordinarily practiced, the charity …
Small grants and social change
When the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust more than doubled in size in 1988 following the takeover of the Rowntree Company by Nestlé, an interesting debate took place within the trust over whether it should split …
How far do our values go?
The central issue in the debate about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s investments is the extent to which endowed grantmaking foundations can and should apply their values to both of their two key roles: …
Why does social justice so often lose out?
At the inaugural meeting of Philanthropy Ireland in 1998, Hugh Frazer, founding Director of the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland, spoke of two broad traditions within the foundation world. On the one hand, the conservative …
