You're currently viewing:
Special features
Can the new African foundations level the playing field?
This article attempts to answer three related questions. The first is whether new African philanthropic foundations such as TrustAfrica and the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) have the clout needed to raise money from the …
Proactive vs responsive philanthropy
Each foundation is faced with the question of how its agenda will be set – and reset. This article looks at both responsive and proactive styles, and their extreme versions of ‘reactive’ and ‘directive’ grantmaking. …
Aid in the 21st century: who’s in the driver’s seat?
Official development assistance (ODA) has altered dramatically over the last ten years – more money, better directed and administered, with greater stress on reducing poverty and greater ownership of the recipients over the whole of …
Philanthrocapitalism goes global
When I coined the term ‘philanthrocapitalism’ in 2006 in an extended essay for The Economist, I had no idea that it would spark such debate. It is often caricatured as no more than an interest …
Philanthropy – whose canvas?
Matthew Bishop defines ‘philanthrocapitalism’ as ‘some of the world’s most talented and successful people … turning their minds to problems like education, disease, climate change and terrorism’. In some ways that’s the problem. As David …
A new architecture needed
Who sets the agenda – funder or grantee? That’s the question posed by this edition of Alliance. To put the matter in the business vocabulary more familiar to philanthrocapitalists: how should (financial) resources be allocated …
What’s a donor to do now?
Earlier this year, London-based New Philanthropy Capital (NPC) published a study on high-net-worth individuals and their need for advice on giving. Principal among its findings were: (1) donors want such advice and they are willing …
Effective strategies for making a difference
Although people of all means have always given to charity, the moniker ‘philanthropist’ has typically been conferred upon wealthy industrialists, whether their fortunes were made in oil and steel (Rockefeller and Carnegie) or software and …
Kumudini Welfare Trust – an unusual model
Established in the early 1940s by Rajiv Prasad Shaha, Kumudini Welfare Trust of Bengal focuses on the welfare of women and poor people in Bangladesh. The Trust is named after Shaha’s mother, who died when …
The Philanthropy Workshop: bringing donors and activists round the same table
For a decade now, alumni of The Philanthropy Workshop (TPW) – an international donor education programme directed by the Institute for Philanthropy – have been running the Youth Justice Funders Collaborative, or YJFC. Based in …