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Power sharing in philanthropy
Edge Fund aims to present an alternative funding model which breaks down the usual power dynamics in funding; it is based on democracy, accountability and transparency. Launched in December 2012, it has adopted a cooperative …
Central American Women’s Fund: From grantee to grantmaker
When I started the Central American Women’s Fund (FCAM) in Nicaragua almost a decade ago, I wondered how I could involve Central American women’s movements in decision-making without creating a political mess. Decisions around money …
Community philanthropy and power
In recent years, there has been an explosion of new forms of community philanthropy organizations around the world, with community foundations, women’s funds, environmental funds and other types of indigenous grassroots grantmakers emerging across Africa, …
I participate, you participate, they decide
‘This is how the verb “to participate” is conjugated – I participate, you participate, they decide.’[1] This comment relates to international development aid but could be echoed by grant recipients of many philanthropic programmes. Who …
Have foundations become more powerful?
On 8 July members of the Working Group on Social Justice and Peace held a webinar to talk about power and philanthropy. Something that isn’t much discussed, it seems. ‘The issue of power in philanthropy …
Local First: The ‘soft franchise’ approach
There’s a new phenomenon in philanthropy that would hardly have been recognized 15 years ago: the belief that the best way to support development is to find what works and then roll it out big …
Philanthropy in India today
India is now the world’s third largest economy. Despite the global financial crash in 2008, philanthropy in India has grown exponentially and improved in quality over recent years. This, believes Arpan Seth of Bain & …
The view from Brazil
The many similarities between Brazilian and Indian philanthropy underline that wherever there is accelerated economic growth, there is also a wealth of new philanthropic initiatives. But one cannot view them through the lens of other, …
Let a hundred flowers blossom
Internationally, there is a huge range of philanthropic practices. Africa has a deep, generations-old tradition of philanthropy, albeit under-acknowledged. Indeed, we should be speaking about traditions of philanthropies, to allow for the range of intentions, …
Then and now
When the financial crisis broke in 2008, Alliance asked a number of people around the world how its effects were playing out in their region and what they expected the consequences to be. We caught …