Special features

When I was 15 in the sleepy city of Krasnodar in southern Russia, I led a double life. By day, I was a ‘model’ teenager with good grades and a member of the school Komsomol …

Independent think-tanks in Central and Eastern Europe have been credited with keeping reform agendas alive during difficult times, challenging post-communist and new elites, and helping foreign specialists transform conceptual models into reforms tailored to local …

Too often ‘debates’ in the philanthropic sector either involve participants talking past each other or safe concurrence that both sides are right. ‘Both/and’ is all well and good but funders and implementers will be operating …

Climate change: should non-government funders be doing anything other than advocacy? While addressing climate change is seemingly on everyone’s agenda, it is less clear what role philanthropy should play, given the vast amounts of money …

Philanthropy is nothing if not voluntary activity. Donors, by definition, are not compelled to give to the public good. They do so from their own private motives. The world is a better place because of …

For nearly 20 years, HIV/AIDS has been the centre of the global health universe. Billions of dollars of aid, public and private, have flowed from North to South to address the pandemic – while the …

Few would argue against measurement in theory. But anyone involved in philanthropic measurement knows that the best evaluations are very expensive and time-consuming. Thus the question isn’t whether measurement is good but whether rigorous impact …

Educational experts agree that education systems are broken at both the top and the bottom around the world. At the bottom, too many children do not receive a basic elementary education, regardless of whether they …

This issue of Alliance raises the question why foundations are so often failing to respond to emerging global crises. Many foundations would argue that their greatest value lies in their long-term view and that their …

How far are foundations willing to go to try to solve what they see as the most urgent problems facing the human race? The received wisdom about the foundation world goes something like this: because …