Special features

The Healthy City Foundation at Banská Bystrica in Slovakia is Eastern Europe’s first community foundation. Although it was first set up both to raise money and to implement its own programmes, it was soon realized …

In the USA where community foundations began – the first was established in 1914 – the core idea was twofold: to create permanent local funds for grant-making and to offer services to donors, giving them …

‘The ability of these institutions to lend effectively beyond the “frontier” of those who have collateral to offer, when those safely behind the frontier make much bigger losses lending to more prosperous people, is one …

Microfinance is seen as an effective way of providing the funds needed for improving the lifestyles and livelihood security systems of some of the world’s poorest communities. In Ghana, as in most other parts of …

Legal and regulatory rules can have a tremendous impact on the prospects for successful microfinance institutions in any country. A ‘diagnostic’ framework is a tool for microfinance practitioners and their legal advisers to help them …

In late 1995 CAF Russia began work on an ambitious project: to help create a first community foundation in Russia. But it is hard to establish a community foundation in a country where there is …

Since 1990 funding to the Palestinian NGO sector has fallen sharply. The World Bank-designed Palestinian NGO Project is intended to open up a new source of funds. The project is unique in that funding will …

US companies are quick enough to reap the business benefits now available in Russia’s emerging free-market economy, but are they contributing to the overall development of society in post-Soviet Russia? A survey carried out by …

The American oil company Chevron is among the giants of the oil industry – sixth largest in the world. Since 1991 Chevron’s interests have been represented in Russia by Chevron Neftgaz Inc. From the very …

‘The  primary social responsiblity of business is to make a profit.’ Milton Friedman ‘We deplore the the false dichotomy . . . that good stakeholder relations undermine the optimization of long-term shareholder value.’ David Wheeler …