This article is part of a series on social innovation. I started thinking more critically about philanthropy’s potential as I prepared my keynote address for this year’s Canadian Environmental Grantmaker’s Network (CEGN) annual conference. The theme of my talk was “decolonizing philanthropy.” In 2015-16, I was a fellow in the International Women’s Forum (IWF)…
Strategy: Philanthropy and Funding
Later this year, Canadians will vote in the 43rd federal election. Many non-profit organizations, networks, and coalitions see elections as a critical opportunity to raise relevant public policy issues. Recently, the rules for charities engaging in public policy have become a prominent source of debate and discussion in government and the sector. As we countdown…
J’ai travaillé pendant près de 20 ans au Canada dans le domaine de la philanthropie organisée. En l’espace de deux décennies, nous avons mis sur pied Fondations philanthropiques Canada (FPC), une plateforme qui dessert maintenant plus de 130 membres. Notre objectif est d’inciter les bailleurs de fonds à travailler de façon efficace, notamment en générant un…
I have worked in the field of organized philanthropy in Canada for close to 20 years. Over two decades we have built Philanthropic Foundations Canada (PFC) as a platform which now serves more than 130 members. Our goal is to challenge funders to do their best work, including making social change. PFC serves the broader…
Giving Done Right: Effective Philanthropy and Making Every Dollar Count, by Phil Buchanan. Public Affairs. New York, 2019; 256 pp: ISBN 9781541742253 The act of giving is defined in deceptively simple terms by any dictionary: “to grant or bestow by formal action; to accord or yield to another; to put into the possession of another…
When a group of Prince Edward County residents decided to establish a community foundation for the pastoral rural island region in eastern Ontario in 2008, they began not with an endowment, as is typically the case, but only a concept and, well, crossed fingers. The region has a few towns and an urban hub, Picton,…
Quand un groupe de résidents du Comté du Prince-Édouard ont décidé de constituer une fondation communautaire pour une région pastorale-rurale d’une île de l’est ontarien, en 2008, il n’a pas d’abord créé un fonds de dotation (habituelle façon de faire), mais uniquement un concept… et s’est croisé les doigts. La région comptait quelques petites municipalités…
Just Giving: Why Philanthropy Is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better, by Rob Reich. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, 2018, ISBN 9780691184395 Just Giving, by Stanford University professor Rob Reich, is a fascinating book for students of political philosophy and for thoughtful foundation leaders. It takes on fundamentally important questions: what…
Putting Wealth to Work: Philanthropy for Today or Investing for Tomorrow?, by Joel L. Fleischman. PublicAffairs. New York, New York, 2017, ISBN: 9781610395335 Joel Fleischman is the director of the Center for Strategic Philanthropy and Civil Society at Duke University. He is one of the most respected scholars of philanthropy in the US and…
La plupart des philanthropes mettent sur pied une fondation dans le but de redonner à la société. Ils investissent leur argent, leurs compétences, leur expérience et leurs connaissances dans ce qui leur semble le plus utile et satisfaisant (Fondations philanthropiques Canada, 2015). Tôt ou tard, ils apprennent toutefois que la société ou la communauté qu’ils…