Host Ratna Omidvar explores with Liban Abokor, co-founder of Foundation for Black Communities, the nature of philanthropic wealth – who it belongs to – and how to hold the philanthropy sector accountable to the communities it serves.
The sector’s accountability relationships and how it defines and accounts for “success” are in need of an overhaul, says contributor Nancy Pole. In the fifth article in our Rethinking Philanthropy series, she argues that philanthropic foundations can play a leading role in this transformation – and in so doing, think differently about their own accountabilities.
The story of philanthropy is not static; it evolves with every new challenge faced. Recently, the calls for reform have been loud and clear – to unlock the billions locked up in endowments, remove “direction and control,” and shift to more reciprocal relationships.
Volunteering is an amazing thing, but it remains an area of unharnessed potential, replete with missed opportunities to build connections across social groups.
A year ago, Century Initiative – whose mission is to enhance Canada’s resilience and influence by responsibly growing the population to 100 million by 2100 – launched a National Scorecard on Canada’s Growth and Prosperity. This year’s scorecard points to three key opportunities where leadership from the charitable sector will be critical.
Bill S-216 would amend the contentious language in the Income Tax Act that requires registered charities to exercise “full direction and control” over their “own activities” when they work with partners that don’t have formal charitable status. In the second part of an ongoing series – exploring a range of views, experiences, and concerns – we examine the concern that the sector may be hiding behind direction-and-control to “mask a more deeply rooted issue in a white-led philanthropic sector.”
In the third article in our Rethinking Philanthropy series, Musu Taylor-Lewis, co-chair of a task force from Canada’s international development sector, shares the main take-aways from the Collective Commitment report, produced in the first stage of a sector-wide initiative to create an Anti-Racism Framework.
Over the last year and a half, Canadian international development organizations have been crafting a sector-wide Anti-Racism Framework, with the goal of creating a springboard for collective transformation. This second article in our Rethinking Philanthropy series reflects on the process that led to the adoption of the framework.
