Though the first ever limited-life foundation, the Julius Rosenwald Fund,was established as long ago as 1917, the idea that a foundation might have only a limited life still seems to subvert many traditional notions about …

Last year Rien van Gendt gave the closing remarks, and in preparing for this talk I thought I might just give his talk again because it was so good. It is always a privilege to …

It seems that foundations, whatever their current mission and focus, are increasingly being pushed to try to tackle the world’s most pressing, and threatening, issues – poverty, disease, global warming. While this year’s Council on …

This year’s Global Philanthropy Forum in early April focused on financing social change and took place in the headquarters of Google. The location inspired keynote speaker Judith Rodin of the Rockefeller Foundation to describe the …

The 58th Annual Conference of the Council on Foundations, held in Seattle in late April/early May, brought together over 2,000 people to discuss the role of philanthropy in addressing four of the big challenges of …

Among the many difficult ethical questions that arise in modern philanthropy, one seems to appear with increasing frequency, the issue of ‘tainted money’. This actually has to do with a very old quandary in the …

The world is facing urgent and complex problems which are global in their nature and thus beyond the capability of national governments to solve alone. How can foundations contribute to solving these problems? In both …

When funders talk about risk, they are usually referring to the risk that the money they put into a project may not have the effect they anticipated or may be wasted. But risk can refer …

While the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland (24-28 January) has never been known as a meeting place for civil society, this year’s Forum could be the starting point for a change of direction. Admittedly, …

Rohini Nilekani is one of India’s ‘new philanthropists’. Wife of Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani and owner of 1.67 per cent of the Indian outsourcing company, when she found her personal fortune soaring to about $300 …