Strategic Philanthropy

Social enterprises (SE) emerge where there are opportunities to find new ways to balance otherwise competing interests and to achieve social purposes in ways that are better than and distinct from traditional approaches. Understanding whether the zoo and its elements are achieving these purposes, making progress, or causing harm is complicated and difficult. The challenges begin with assessing essential things that cannot be measured easily or well. They continue with how SE simultaneously has social impact at so many levels: individual, organizational, communal, within and among parts of the zoo, and society as a whole. They are exacerbated by the need to account for gains in one social impact area possibly being accompanied by harm in another. Of course, being complicated or challenging or even presently unprovable is no excuse for not trying. In that spirit this chapter approaches assessing the social impact of SE, its potential, and its distinguishing character at three key leve...

This paper discusses various issues and challenges facing philanthropy and nonprofit organizations in the United States of America. This report presents effective fundraising strategies and discusses management techniques employed by veterans in the nonprofit sector. Additionally, descriptions of each of the nine major areas associated with foundation funding are summarized, and certain grantsmanship practices are highlighted. Finally, this report will discuss seven basic components necessary for writing a successful grant proposal.

The United States population is the world's most philanthropic, be it at a personal, family, or corporate level. Philanthropy is in crisis: the effect of the lock-down, the slowing of the economy, and the uncertainty  in the labor market present clear dangers for the revenues expectations of non-profit organizations. This moment of crisis is a good time to reassess priorities and practices.

The 20th Century revolved politically around competing interpretations of Capitalism, Communism, Socialism and Fascism. These are all ways to organize the lives of people on a large scale. Are real alternatives or new interpretations likely to emerge in the challenging years ahead? What might they look like?

Strategic Philanthropy is an approach by which corporate or business giving and other philanthropic endeavors of a firm are designed in such a way that it best fits with the firm's overall mission, goals and values. This entry provides history and current standings of the concept.

Effective altruism is a philosophy and a social movement that aims to revolutionise the way in which we do philanthropy. It encourages individuals to do as much good as possible, typically by contributing money to the best-performing aid and development organizations. Surprisingly, this approach has met with considerable resistance among aid practitioners. They argue that effective altruism is insensitive to justice insofar as it overlooks the value of equality, urgency and rights. They also hold that the movement suffers from methodological bias, which means that it takes materialistic, individualistic and instrumental approach to doing good. Finally, they maintain that effective altruists hold false empirical beliefs about the world, and that they reach mistaken conclusions about how best to act for that reason. This paper weighs the force of each objection in turn, and looks at responses to the challenge they pose.

Among all industrial societies, the United States has long granted the most scope to philanthropy. While foundations exist in many countries—most prominently in Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, and Japan—the United States stands out: in no modern society are foundations more numerous, and nowhere have they become so prominent and visible. Compared with their counterparts in Europe and Asia, the philanthropic foundations of the United States look back to a longer and more continuous history.

In this book, however, our concern is not to explain why so many foundations have appeared in the United States or why they are more numerous and more influential here than in other countries. Instead, we ask, What difference have they made over time, and what difference are they making today? What have they contributed to American society over time, and what are they contributing today? How did foundations achieve impact in the past, and how are they attempting to make a difference today?

It would be wrong to conclude on a note that suggests that all foundations subscribe to any single set of approaches. Instead, we step back for a moment to
emphasize the extraordinary diversity of foundation size, approach, and purpose and to suggest that acceptance of that diversity is increasing. Recent decades have seen a remarkable and still little-studied flowering of religious foundations devoted not only to the oldest-established mainline Protestant denominations but also to evangelical Protestantism in many of its varieties, to the many dimensions of Judaism, and even to Catholic causes that had long made minimal use of foundations.38 The liberal National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy critiques the field from a progressive standpoint; the Philanthropy Roundtable
and the Capital Research Center comment from the right. In its efforts to provide an umbrella for the entire field, the Council on Foundations has set up a number of specialized committees. Foundation program officers have organized a large and increasing number of grant makers in particular fields ranging from aging and the arts to the environment and health to the U.S. International Grantmaking project .  Hence it is no surprise that those who call for new foundation approaches do not speak with a single voice.

Scholarship on leftist movements suggests a moderating impact of foundation funding, but for conservative movements, more radical ideology potentially attracts patrons, as evidenced in the development of the New Right. This paper looks at the grant-making behavior of 15 core conservative foundations from 1971-1997, and their role in the right-wing realignment of the Republican Party. All the foundations under analysis were major funders of the Heritage Foundation, the leading organization of the New Right network, founded by serial entrepreneur Paul Weyrich to pursue grander policy and cultural change than existing “Old Right” organizations like the American Enterprise Institute. The dataset includes the Adolph Coors, Sarah Scaife, Bradley, Olin, and Samuel Roberts Noble foundations, among other prominent conservative foundations. Incorporating a unique database of conservative foundation grants with the history of the development of the New Right infrastructure, this paper seeks to understand the relationship between movement organizations and funders as a dynamic process. By establishing bonds of trust, taking a movement approach to giving, and accepting risk and failures as part of the process toward building substantive long-term change, conservative funders and entrepreneurs active in the 1970s and 1980s established a sustainable and influential network that impacts the present day political spectrum. Infamous contemporary funders like the Koch brothers, who spent those years promoting the Libertarian Party, both benefit from and are limited by the entities and agendas entrenched by the New Right.

Con l' Illumunismo il rapporto tra filantropia, educazione e potere subisce una ri-concettualizzazione che fa emergere una discontinuità rispetto al passato.  E' in questo contesto che prende forma l'opera di Johann B. Basedow verso il progetto di un architettura formativa dalla dicitura alquanto bizzarra a quell'epoca, il "Philanthropinum", che aveva tra i suoi punti forti, nientemeno che l'abitazione di Kant.

This report summarizes a year of research on how funders can work more collaboratively to place longer-term, more adaptive resources with organizations to help them scale their impact. It includes findings from case studies of 25 funder collaboratives aimed at systems change.

Le choix de traiter de la pratique philanthropique de la Radio-Télévision belge de la Communauté française (RTBF), et plus particulièrement des opérations de générosité CAP 48 et Viva for Life, s’est imposé à la suite d’un constat. Définie comme une entreprise publique d’information à vocation culturelle1, son ambition humanitaire/humaniste ou sociale/sociétale n’est cependant revendiquée nulle part explicitement. Nous avons alors voulu, dans un premier temps, tenter de comprendre les raisons qui ont poussé la RTBF à mettre sur pied ces deux actions de solidarité, et analyser le lien qui existe avec sa mission de base, ainsi que nous interroger sur les opportunités qu’offraient ces deux shows médiatiques à l’entreprise publique, en termes de retombées internes et externes.

by Georg von Schnurbein -DRAFT VERSIONdo not cite without the authors permission Philanthropic acts aim at a change in habits or situation in the life of others. The current debate on performance measurement and professionalization of the philanthropic sector leads -despite the altruistic tenor of the acts -to the question, which consequences the beneficence has and to what extent a philanthropist has to take them into account in advance. Based on risk-ethical decision approaches this paper discusses several risks for the philanthropist and others. Practical examples and theoretical considerations are used to elaborate specific risks of philanthropy. Afterwards three elementary parameters are presented that a philanthropist may use in order to reduce the probability of the aforementioned risks.

François Brouard
SCSE-CSES / Sprott School of Business, Carleton University
Juniper Glass
SCSE-CSES / Carleton University

ABSTRACT
Information and reporting issues are most present than ever in an accountability context, Grantmaking foundations in Canada are part of the development of better practices for the sector. The objective of the paper is to examine emerging information and reporting issues of grant-making foundations. To structure our analysis, a framework based on theory of stakeholders and information flows was developed. Some general trends and issues regarding information are discussed before examining a number of forms of reporting, such as tax and regulatory, financial, social, and grantmaking.
RÉSUMÉ
Les enjeux liés à l’information et à la communication sont plus présents que jamais dans un contexte de responsabilisation de plus en plus présent. Les fondations subventionnaires du Canada font partie intégrante du développement des meilleures pratiques pour le secteur. L’objectif du rapport est d’examiner les enjeux émergents liés à l’information et à la communication des fondations subventionnaires. Afin d’organiser le rapport, un cadre d’analyse basé sur la théorie des parties prenantes et sur la circulation de l’information a été développé. Certains enjeux généraux sont soulignés. Ensuite, quelques formes de communication de l’information, notamment celles fiscales et réglementaires, financières, sociales et subventionnaires font l’objet d’une brève discussion.

By Nancy Pole, PhiLab
August 7, 2016

By describing and critically discussing foundation collaboration as a field of practice, this literature review aims to provide a conceptual and analytical framework to accompany the Canadian case studies on foundation collaboration that form Cluster 3 of the SSHRC research development project. While grantmaking foundations support and engage in collaborations with a range of different actors, the focus here is on collaborations amongst foundations themselves, in which other types of funding partners may also be present. For the most part, these collaborations build upon and around the central role that foundations play as grantmakers – as funders to third sector organizations.
The term “collaboration” is taken to refer to a broad range of relationships between grantmaking foundations. It has become a bit of a buzzword in the sector literature, in keeping with current ways of looking at philanthropy and social change. A move towards increased collaboration in the sector closely follows the shift over the past fifteen years towards more strategic forms of philanthropy. In this context, collaboration is often seen as the only way to achieve ambitious change goals, based on the recognition that multiple actors need to work together to solve complex problems.
Broadly speaking, grantmaking foundations collaborate in order to make existing work more efficient, to develop more effective interventions (“increase impact”), to support learning and to develop now knowledge, and/or to exercise combined influence with policymakers or other funders. A review of case studies reveals that collaboration among foundations can indeed achieve some of these purposes and yield synergistic effects that could not have been achieved by foundations acting alone. However, there is some doubt as to whether collaboration helps to improve efficiency from the grantmaker’s perspective.
A range of different collaborative forms exists to support these different purposes. These fall into two major groupings: “light-touch” collaboration types where participants generally retain their full autonomy over strategies and granting procedures, and deeper, more integrated forms of collaboration requiring partners to establish joint objectives and ways of working. Most actual foundation collaborations combine different purposes and take on hybrid forms that evolve over their life course.
The deeper forms of collaboration are both difficult and counter-normative, challenging foundations’ attachment to autonomy and brand and requiring that they relinquish some control over decision-making. In considering collaboration, foundations should give some attention to its strategic fit with their aims and to their own organizational readiness to collaborate. The literature suggests that few if any foundations will agree to collaborate purely for the sake of impact on the problem to be solved, if there are no individual or organizational benefits to be gained. This may be particularly true for public fundraising foundations that need to position their brand in order to survive in a competitive market.
Prominent among the key conditions or factors for collaboration success are the importance of shared purpose and realistic goals, structure aligned to purpose, flexibility and adaptive capacity, and investment in strong, trusting relationships.
This literature review indicates that collaboration holds promise for many grantmaking foundations seeking to strategically leverage their own limited resources, and for those seeking to contribute to results beyond what they could hope to achieve on their own. At the same time, by enabling foundations to concentrate and coordinate their resources, collaboration can amplify existing challenges of power and legitimacy associated with private philanthropy, including how it may work to amplify foundations’ capacity to set and further agendas for which they are not held publicly accountable, and how it may reinforce inequitable granter-grantee power dynamics.
Finally, the literature review points to a few areas where future knowledge generation activities could make a useful contribution to the field, by:
- drawing more upon existing knowledge about collaboration and partnerships that has been generated within other sectors of activity;
2
- expanding the frame to focus on cross-sector collaborations that foundations engage in, many of which are particularly positioned to catalyze or to structure change within industries or institutional fields;
- seeking out the perspective of non-foundation stakeholders on the specific role that foundations are best positioned to play within these sector-spanning spheres of activity.

Abstract
This paper discusses various issues and challenges facing philanthropy and nonprofit organizations in the United States of America. The writer believes that effective grant writing abilities are necessary for leaders in higher education and those who posses these skills will be able to lead more efficiently. The paper will present effective fundraising strategies and discuss management techniques employed by veterans in the nonprofit sector. Additionally, descriptions of each of the nine major areas associated with foundation funding are summarized, and certain grantsmanship practices are highlighted. Finally, this paper will discuss seven basic components necessary for writing a successful grant proposal.

In this article, I address the impact of neoliberalism and the attendant techniques of financialization on multiculturalism in Canada through ethnographic research at a non-profit, multicultural heritage institution. I consider how the workers at this non-profit, maintained their solidaristic, pre-neoliberal conception of multiculturalism even as they experimented with a sociality dominated by market exchange. Even as worker subjectivity was transformed at the institution by dramatic budget cuts and the necessity for project-based contracts, ‘volunteerism’, entrepreneurialism, and flexibility, neoliberal discourse also opened new imaginative possibilities for the MHSO. Through extensive community networks the organization has been able to survive, if precariously, without dramatic changes to its pre-neoliberal programming which asserts a social democratic, pluralist ethos. Therefore, in this article, I argue we need to attend to the limits of neoliberal effects on the situated and historically distinctive way multiculturalism has been put into practice around the world.

This book explores how a handful of liberal foundations contributed to establish and orientate the international climate regime. Looking back at the origins of international climate philanthropy and its evolution over the past three decades, the author examines the role of philanthropic foundations in the international climate debate. The research presented in this book shows that foundations, through their grant-making and convening activities, are at the heart of the climate debate. In fact, many credit them with having, through their activities prior to and at the COP, significantly contributed to laying the basis for the Paris Agreement in December 2015.

Recent efforts billed as supporting graduate students are papering over the real issues they face.  Since persons with PhDs are generally employed in good jobs, floundering grad programs are dropping a difficult measure of success (tenure track placement) for a guaranteed win when they advertise alt-ac employment as success.

As the number of Indonesians migrating to foreign countries grows, so do the remittances they send back to Indonesia. The amounts are significant. The World Bank's Migration and  remittance Factbook noted that in 2008 Indonesia ranked thirteenth in world's top remittance-receiving countries. In 2006 Indonesia received inward remittance flows of 5.722 million US dollars, or 1.6 per cent of the nation's GDP. However, few studies have been conducted of the Indonesian diaspora's philanthropic organization. This article will examine the experience of the Cerdas Foundation in managing Indonesian philanthropy in Seattle, in the United States of America. In accomplishing its mission statements, the Cerdas Foundation faces obstacles and challenges generated by the problems of distance from Indonesia, inadequate organizational structure, and an "open ideology". Despite this, the Cerdas Foundation arguably has the potential to contribute sustainably to Indonesia's social and economic development through its education and disaster relief programs, if it can transform itself from a gathering of nostalgic Indonesians in Seattle to a functional corporation. This is possible, the article argues, if the Cerdas Foundation adopts a more hierarchical organizational structure and balances its stance of philanthropic amateurism.

Can and should the superrich save the world? While this is a highly contested issue, attention is predominantly paid to individual philanthrocapitalists, such as Bill and Melinda Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Pierre Omidyar, George Soros, Elon Musk, or Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg and their visions. This paper conceives of such visions as raw material which is refined within philanthrocapitalist organizations. Traditionally, such organizations took the form of a tax-exempt foundation, a 501(c) organization. There seems to be a recent trend towards organizing as an LLC, thereby losing tax exemption. That an LLC is allowed to invest and earn money, does not fully explain this shift. Instead, the thesis is put forward that it is not all about money but that an LLC offers opportunities to solve problems such organizations typically face when tackling grand challenges: 1) making addressees use solutions (properly) and 2) scaling them. One solution (the Public Safety Assessment) from one organization (Arnold Ventures LLC) illustrates that philanthrocapitalist LLCs do not just execute their founder's wills but translate visions into strategies to reach what money (alone) cannot buy and technology (alone) cannot operate-and what an LLC is needed for.

Foundations are commonly recognized as having a comparative advantage in supporting forward-looking projects and programs. In this sense, the long term represents the natural horizon in which the foundations are called to fulfill their mission to plan and develop philanthropic activities and, therefore, the time reference for assessing results.

When a mission is focused more on improving the quality of life in a specific community than on addressing a specific social problem, evaluation of outcomes becomes more challenging. While available methods can provide valuable support to measuring the impact of a foundation’s specific program, they are unlikely to provide an overview of the outcomes of a multitude of projects financed over time.

This article presents the case of an Italian foundation committed to developing a tailored approach to evaluating the durable benefits of its local philanthropic activity.

By Juniper Glass
Oct 4, 2016

The study describes the landscape of collaboration between grantmaking foundations in Canada: how and why philanthropic organizations are working together towards shared goals. This topic was selected because of the dearth of research on Canadian philanthropic organizations (Rigillo et al, forthcoming; Pole, 2016) and because collaboration has been identified as part of the trend towards strategic philanthropy.

Value. Voice. Collective Impact. Philanthropy networks, their leaders, members and funders alike, are looking to build a future in which these core elements are reflected in their work. How can networks define and realize new value propositions and amplify voice in a way that is responsive to members yet also shapes the field? What role can tech and data solutions play in enhancing value? What strategies in advocacy and thought leadership can elevate the voice and visibility of the sector? How can philanthropy support networks go beyond focusing solely on organizational impact to creating more collective impact across the sector?
This guide combines thoughtful concepts, frameworks and practical approaches that all philanthropy networks can use to prepare their organizations for the next decade.

Juniper Glass
SCSE-CSES / Carleton University
François Brouard
SCSE-CSES / Sprott School of Business, Carleton University

SCSE-CSES Discussion Paper May 2015

ABSTRACT
Transparency and information sharing issues are more present than ever in a context of increasing expectation of nonprofit accountability and good governance. Grantmaking foundations in Canada are part of the development of better practices for the Third Sector. There appears to be growing interest among Canadian foundations to increase public information sharing and transparency. The purpose of this paper is to provide background information that will support discussion in the foundation sector about transparency practices. The paper examines the opportunities and challenges of increased transparency and provides a brief view of the state of foundation transparency in Canada. This paper is based on a review of secondary sources.
RÉSUMÉ
La problématique de l’information et de sa divulgation est de plus en plus présente dans un contexte de responsabilisation et de gouvernance. Les fondations subventionnaires canadiennes font partie du développement des meilleures pratiques dans le secteur. Il y a un intérêt grandissant parmi les fondations canadiennes pour un meilleur partage de l’information et de la transparence. L’objectif de ce rapport est de fournir certains renseignements pour contribuer à la discussion sur les pratiques de transparence. Basé sur des données secondaires, ce rapport examine les occasions et les défis d’une plus grande transparence et fournit un bref survol de l’état de la situation de la transparence au Canada.

Abstract This paper examines the “Respect for History” project on Turkey's Gallipoli Peninsula sponsored by a Turkish oil company, OPET. The project sought to enhance and protect the cultural and historical experiences of tourists visiting Gallipoli, and to bring direct and indirect benefits to local communities through enhancing tourism-related business opportunities and improving community infrastructure. This research investigates the project's impact on residents' perceived social and economic wellbeing, using a quality of ...

Nonprofits -especially foundations- are increasingly expected to operate as effectively as possible and, in recent years, calls for improved accountability and transparency have become more strident than ever. In addition, foundations compete with new forms of mission-driven for-profits. If they want to stand out in this competitive environment, foundations must undertake an important shift from good intentions to real impact. One way to support this change is to formalize foundations' corporate governance.

Abstract This paper examines the “Respect for History” project on Turkey's Gallipoli Peninsula sponsored by a Turkish oil company, OPET. The project sought to enhance and protect the cultural and historical experiences of tourists visiting Gallipoli, and to bring direct and indirect benefits to local communities through enhancing tourism-related business opportunities and improving community infrastructure. This research investigates the project's impact on residents' perceived social and economic wellbeing, using a quality of ...

As  the  European  ecosystem  continues  to  grow  and  diversify,  the  need  for  a  meta-analysis  emerged  to  examine  opportunities  and  challenges  and  determine  expectations  from  organisations  going  forward.  The  study  upon  which  this  publication  is  based  was  commissioned  by  a  consortium  of  six  European  foundations  (listed  in    acknowledgments),    who    sought    input    and    perspectives  from  key  stakeholders,  with  a  particular  view  to  understanding  the  gaps  and  areas  for  further  development.  As  a  result  of  this  study,  the  acronym  European    Philanthropy    and    Social    Investment    Infrastructure - in short, EPSII - was born.

If public goods are broadly defined as resources that not only benefit those who possess them but society in general, then US philanthropic foundations have long been providers of public goods in Latin America, due to their grants to institutions of research and higher education and to human rights activists. One of these resources that can be considered public goods are what I call “sound policies.” Here the term simply means policies devised by properly trained public officials that have access to the information necessary to achieve their policy goals. In this post , I propose to consider philanthropic support to education, the elaboration of statistics, and human rights activism as producing public goods. I first spell out the new insights that we obtain if we consider philanthropies’ involvement in facilitating, for example, training to diplomats and economic statistics as a strategy to provide sound policies. Less intuitive is the claim that in the mid-1970s, when the Ford Foundation initiated its human rights programs in the Southern Cone, philanthropic foundations and other donors became providers of a second type of public good on the continent, in addition to sound policies, that is, security. Common to both public goods is the centrality of information.

This report encourages philanthropic funders to work more collaboratively and provide longer-term, more adaptive resources with grantees and investees to help them scale their solutions and impact and achieve systems change. It summarizes a year of research with over two dozen non-profits and social enterprises, and identifies five recommendations for philanthropic funders to support them more effectively.

There is no question that transparency is an essential element of effective philanthropy.  Foundation-grantee relationships are enhanced by mutual transparency and impeded by opaque practice.  However, there are questions about the legitimacy of certain external stakeholders, beyond grantee partners, in private philanthropy.  Further, there are unique advantages to the specific setting in which private philanthropy exists.  Such advantages include the ability to shield grant decisions from unwanted, unhelpful outside influences and political considerations, as well as the ability to take big risks in pursuit of innovation.  Private foundations, and their grantee partners, can take risks and fail without damaging their public reputations or injuring prospects for future grant making capacity.  In this specific regard, are there benefits to opaque practice with certain external parties?

Since 2008 approximately half of the states in the U.S. have enacted statutes permitting “hybrid” business forms that blend aspects of traditional for-profit ventures with characteristics normally associated with traditional non-profit entities. This article analyzes theoretical, academic, practical, legal, and regulatory questions regarding the extent to which the existing hybrids are suited to achieving social purposes objectives, including in comparison to modified traditional forms of business organization. Finding the current fleet of hybrids an innovative, useful start, but with need to evolve, this article proposes statutory language (set forth in a detailed appendix, and summarized in the article text), and regulatory policies, including in the areas of general oversight, tax, and securities regulation, for a next iteration of hybrid — a “Social Primacy Company” designed to provide more clarity in the marketplace for socially-conscious investors.

This paper explores an emerging area, where a change is taking place in American Jewish philanthropic support of Israel, signaling a notable shift in the traditional support of Jews in the Jewish State.  Over the last 30 years, a very small minority of Jewish funders became interested in Arabs in the Jewish State.  In this first decade of the 21st century, that interest, while still a very small percentage of philanthropic activity , has grown into a significant trend.  A brief overview of American Jewish support of the state of Israel that sets the stage for a profile of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Israeli Arab Issues.  The Task Force, established in 2006, has created a coalition of 80 leading North American funders and Jewish organizations have subscribed as members in support of the organization’s mission to: …to generate awareness among the North American Jewish and Israeli public to advance civic equality in Israel, where Israeli Jews and Arabs can contribute, participate and benefit as full citizens…”  Using the framework established by Hammack and Heydeman (2009), we explore several key questions about the nature of this American Jewish philanthropic activity’s focus on Israeli Arab, and the degree to which it can be characterized as projecting institutional logics abroad.