Author Archive:
Steven Burkeman
Do More Than Give
Do More Than Give is full of unquestionably – relentlessly, even – positive instances of creative behaviour by (for the most part) US foundations. To examine it critically is rather like criticizing motherhood, and possibly …
The Art of Giving: Where the soul meets a business plan by Charles Bronfman and Jeffrey Solomon
The basis of this book raises a fascinating issue, perhaps best encapsulated by its subtitle – ‘where the soul meets a business plan’. As an individual, I reserve the right to respond emotionally when I …
Uncharitable: How restraints on nonprofits undermine their potential by Dan Pallotta
If you run major charitable events and are forced out of business because the charities you work with don’t like your methods, there are various ways of dealing with the trauma. You could seek counselling …
Whispering from the rooftops
In September 2007, Alliance ran a special issue on climate change in which Stephen Heintz, President of Rockefeller Brothers Fund, described the work that RBF has been doing for some years in the USA. The …
Effective Foundation Management: 14 challenges of philanthropic leadership – and how to outfox them – Joel J Orosz
Joel Orosz’s theme, foundation management, is, for some people, a strange one. How can giving money away be complicated? Why should it need to be managed? In more innocent days, worthy people were simply identified …
Beyond verbal confusions
When Susan Wilkinson-Maposa researched philanthropy in communities in Southern Africa, she ran into a major problem: there isn’t a word for philanthropy in any of the 11 languages of the region; she was forced instead …
Influencing public policy
Most grantmakers are not really interested in change: they just want to do good, which need not be the same thing at all. Grantmakers do not, on the whole, question the notion that giving money …
Foundations, the state and social justice[1]
In a paper I gave a year or so ago in New Zealand,[2] I argued that the time was ripe for a new contract between foundations and the state. I suggested that the proper role …
Foundations and the State
‘Charity as ordinarily practised, the charity of endowment, the charity of emotion, the charity which takes the place of justice, creates much of the misery which it relieves, but does not relieve all the misery …
International Grantmaking: A report on US foundation trends by Loren Renz et al
It is surprising to read here that ‘a comprehensive review of trends in international grantmaking has never been undertaken’. This book seeks to fill that gap, at least in so far as US foundations are …
