Funding practice

In the first blog post of this series, I shared a film we made to engage UK foundations and philanthropists in the conversation about how civil society can be better equipped to anticipate and shape …

As calls to include local voices grow, here’s what we learned We’re hearing more and more from aid agencies and international NGOs about supporting ‘locals’ and ‘locally led’ approaches. It makes sense, because local people …

Climate change is the largest and most pervasive threat to both people and the planet. Yet, too often funders still tend to think of climate change as siloed in our analysis and responses, or a …

Many of the conversations taking place within philanthropy at the moment centre around legitimacy, transparency, equity, diversity, inclusion…the list goes on. These topics skirt around what really needs to be addressed: the unbalanced power dynamics …

As an organisation committed to gender equality, Oxfam recently conducted research on specialist funders of women and girls, in partner with I.G. Advisors. We spoke to 26 funders and nine women’s rights organisations about their …

In a world of populist, ‘punching down’ and divisive politics, trust is a commodity in short supply. A bleak reality, and one with significant consequence for individuals, communities, nations – and philanthropy. Regardless of where …

Communications strategy: what is it exactly in the context of a grant-making foundation? How can we use communications to achieve our goals? And, why is communication important anyway? As the Head of Communications for Oak …

For most new philanthropists, making the transition from the corporate world to philanthropy can be intimidating. At first, it seems like they are opposing worlds with starkly contrasting objectives: one is motivated by profits while …