Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) are the fastest growing destination for charitable giving, and subject... more Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) are the fastest growing destination for charitable giving, and subject to vigorous debate over whether they should be more tightly regulated. Virtually all of the research on DAFs and the arguments for increased regulation emanate from the US. This article compares regulation in Canada and Australia with the US to demonstrate how different regimes lead to different uses of DAFs and different ‘market’ configurations. The conceptual framework presents three motivational scenarios for their use: as pseudo foundations, tax savings and protection of privacy. The differential effects of regulation on these donor scenarios explains why total DAF assets in Australia are proportionately much lower than its North American counterparts, mainly because its regime is not skewed as heavily toward the tax savings motivated donor. The findings raise serious questions as to whether DAFs have actually democratized philanthropy, as is so often claimed. In terms of policy cha...
Investigations of how Oxfam Great Britain (GB) managed its safeguarding systems and handled revel... more Investigations of how Oxfam Great Britain (GB) managed its safeguarding systems and handled revelations of sexual exploitation by its staff highlighted a variety of internal governance and culture issues, and a lack of transparency as it sought to protect its reputation. The current models of reputation management do not fully explain its actions, however. This article argues that five systemic factors in the environment in which nonprofits operate create undue pressures for protection of reputations and contribute to poor assessment of risks, inadequate accountability systems and limited transparency. These factors include: a stress on success and related competition for market share and pressures for growth; expectations of low overheads; challenges of governance and risk management; lack of public awareness; and regulatory gaps. Drawing on media coverage and the commissions of inquiry, the analysis shows how all of these contextual factors were at play in the Oxfam case, and sugg...
Nonprofit human service agencies are an essential part of the social safety net and their role in... more Nonprofit human service agencies are an essential part of the social safety net and their role in many policy fields such as community care, workforce development, and disability services is growing. The funding, delivery and entire configuration of human services systems is in transition in the US, as in many other countries, albeit with great variation depending upon local and regional circumstances. Consequently, nonprofit human service agencies need to develop sustainable program and business models that are also responsive to the heightened expectations on transparency and accountability. In addition, policymakers and government officials will need to work closely with nonprofit human service agencies in order to ensure effective and efficient service delivery. Drawing on evidence from the policy and nonprofit literatures, this brief offers a set of hypotheses about the implications, and possible paradoxes, for the nonprofit sector that are likely to emerge from the increasingl...
Civil society organizations (nonprofits, social enterprises, voluntary, community and charitable ... more Civil society organizations (nonprofits, social enterprises, voluntary, community and charitable organizations) are not only an integral part of the delivery of health, education, social, and other services in most developed countries, but also critical contributors to a healthy democracy and a strong economy. How civil society organizations are financed is a key aspect of their sustainability. Such financing is undergoing significant innovation and transformation. This financing ranges from traditional government funding and philanthropic support to new forms of revenue-generating social enterprises. In this themed issue of Policy & Society we bring together international scholars to critically examine the current changes underway in financing the third sector. The volume identifies and analyzes particularly innovative and effective strategies for financing this sector and assesses the implications for public policy through an intentionally broad range of cases that draw on the exp...
Historians increasingly write about philanthropy as a gift relationship. Alan Kidd (1996: 184), f... more Historians increasingly write about philanthropy as a gift relationship. Alan Kidd (1996: 184), for example, describes philanthropy as non-commercial social transfers of wealth, material objects or non-material assistance rendered in forms that are culturally meaningful and that generate moral relationships between individuals or groups such as solidarity, dependence, legitimacy, and reputability. The history of philanthropy, however, is not simply a history of giving, far less one of giving only by the rich; it requires us to examine the various sides of the relationship. This brings it into close engagement with many other branches of history: class, gender, national identity and empire, religion and missions, poor relief and welfare, wealth and taxation, civil society. All these, and others, touch on philanthropy. In this synopsis, I argue that historians of philanthropy need to think like geologists. Stop the clock at any time, say 1850 in Europe, and you will find strata, or layers, of philanthropic giving accumulated on top of each other. The philanthropy of the past leaves its material record, its buildings, its legal documents, its charitable gifts, its assumptions and practices, in layer after layer. The present adds a topsoil of the latest projects, but the lower layers continue to exercise their influence, sometimes in the form of outcrops from earlier ages of giving.
Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) are the fastest growing destination for charitable giving, and subject... more Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) are the fastest growing destination for charitable giving, and subject to vigorous debate over whether they should be more tightly regulated. Virtually all of the research on DAFs and the arguments for increased regulation emanate from the US. This article compares regulation in Canada and Australia with the US to demonstrate how different regimes lead to different uses of DAFs and different ‘market’ configurations. The conceptual framework presents three motivational scenarios for their use: as pseudo foundations, tax savings and protection of privacy. The differential effects of regulation on these donor scenarios explains why total DAF assets in Australia are proportionately much lower than its North American counterparts, mainly because its regime is not skewed as heavily toward the tax savings motivated donor. The findings raise serious questions as to whether DAFs have actually democratized philanthropy, as is so often claimed. In terms of policy cha...
Investigations of how Oxfam Great Britain (GB) managed its safeguarding systems and handled revel... more Investigations of how Oxfam Great Britain (GB) managed its safeguarding systems and handled revelations of sexual exploitation by its staff highlighted a variety of internal governance and culture issues, and a lack of transparency as it sought to protect its reputation. The current models of reputation management do not fully explain its actions, however. This article argues that five systemic factors in the environment in which nonprofits operate create undue pressures for protection of reputations and contribute to poor assessment of risks, inadequate accountability systems and limited transparency. These factors include: a stress on success and related competition for market share and pressures for growth; expectations of low overheads; challenges of governance and risk management; lack of public awareness; and regulatory gaps. Drawing on media coverage and the commissions of inquiry, the analysis shows how all of these contextual factors were at play in the Oxfam case, and sugg...
Nonprofit human service agencies are an essential part of the social safety net and their role in... more Nonprofit human service agencies are an essential part of the social safety net and their role in many policy fields such as community care, workforce development, and disability services is growing. The funding, delivery and entire configuration of human services systems is in transition in the US, as in many other countries, albeit with great variation depending upon local and regional circumstances. Consequently, nonprofit human service agencies need to develop sustainable program and business models that are also responsive to the heightened expectations on transparency and accountability. In addition, policymakers and government officials will need to work closely with nonprofit human service agencies in order to ensure effective and efficient service delivery. Drawing on evidence from the policy and nonprofit literatures, this brief offers a set of hypotheses about the implications, and possible paradoxes, for the nonprofit sector that are likely to emerge from the increasingl...
Civil society organizations (nonprofits, social enterprises, voluntary, community and charitable ... more Civil society organizations (nonprofits, social enterprises, voluntary, community and charitable organizations) are not only an integral part of the delivery of health, education, social, and other services in most developed countries, but also critical contributors to a healthy democracy and a strong economy. How civil society organizations are financed is a key aspect of their sustainability. Such financing is undergoing significant innovation and transformation. This financing ranges from traditional government funding and philanthropic support to new forms of revenue-generating social enterprises. In this themed issue of Policy & Society we bring together international scholars to critically examine the current changes underway in financing the third sector. The volume identifies and analyzes particularly innovative and effective strategies for financing this sector and assesses the implications for public policy through an intentionally broad range of cases that draw on the exp...
Historians increasingly write about philanthropy as a gift relationship. Alan Kidd (1996: 184), f... more Historians increasingly write about philanthropy as a gift relationship. Alan Kidd (1996: 184), for example, describes philanthropy as non-commercial social transfers of wealth, material objects or non-material assistance rendered in forms that are culturally meaningful and that generate moral relationships between individuals or groups such as solidarity, dependence, legitimacy, and reputability. The history of philanthropy, however, is not simply a history of giving, far less one of giving only by the rich; it requires us to examine the various sides of the relationship. This brings it into close engagement with many other branches of history: class, gender, national identity and empire, religion and missions, poor relief and welfare, wealth and taxation, civil society. All these, and others, touch on philanthropy. In this synopsis, I argue that historians of philanthropy need to think like geologists. Stop the clock at any time, say 1850 in Europe, and you will find strata, or layers, of philanthropic giving accumulated on top of each other. The philanthropy of the past leaves its material record, its buildings, its legal documents, its charitable gifts, its assumptions and practices, in layer after layer. The present adds a topsoil of the latest projects, but the lower layers continue to exercise their influence, sometimes in the form of outcrops from earlier ages of giving.
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Papers by Susan Phillips