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Are today’s donors different?
If you’ve heard it (or read it) once, you’ve heard it a thousand times: ‘Today’s donors are different.’ Left at that, the statement would be true, if innocuous and obvious. Every generation of donors will …
Does impact rule with donors?
It’s widely assumed that donors are more focused on impact and effectiveness than they used to be when making decisions about giving. Just from listening to the language of philanthropy – the increasing references to …
Philanthropy’s keystone species
Philanthropy is large, it contains multitudes. Amid the diversity of philanthropy there is no ‘average donor’. We might as well ask what is the ‘average’ animal in a rainforest. Natural ecosystems are diverse. So is …
100 years of ‘caring about impact’: what’s changed?
Santayana’s famous dictum, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’, could have been made in direct reference to philanthropy. As Maribel Morey and Benjamin Soskis write introducing a new blog focused …
Young donors’ attitudes to giving
Among young philanthropists, the words effectiveness and impact circulate widely in talk about projects and organizations funded. With their sights on the environment and other global issues, they take a hands-on approach. But how clear …
The rich diversity of global philanthropy
I have spent the last two years trying to define Arab philanthropy. Though it was relatively easy to look at the history and the tradition of giving and the reasons for its decline, it was …
Why effective altruism appeals to young donors
Effective altruism is a growing social movement that combines the heart and the head: it’s compassion guided by data and reason. It’s about dedicating a significant part of one’s life to improving the world and rigorously trying …
Feedback as democracy in social change practice
A huge shift is happening in the social sector. Dennis Whittle traces it all the way back to the birth of democracy in Greece circa 594 BCE. The people are sovereign! In titling our special …
LIFT: The search for a predictive indicator
Last year, LIFT started working with a man named Mr Assefa who, despite working full time, lives several thousand dollars below the US federal poverty line of just $28,410 annually for a family of five. …
Digital Green: Video-based learning within rural networks
Digital Green’s video-enabled, knowledge–sharing work has smallholder farming communities at its core. Small farmers in low–income countries like India and Ethiopia typically make do with dated and abstract agricultural information in the traditional top-down extension …