Local peacebuilders are the backbone of lasting peace in communities, and supporting their welfare and efforts is essential. This core message emerges strongly from a session held at the 5th African Philanthropy Conference in July 2024, which inspired this paper, Fostering Peaceful Communities: What Role Can Philanthropy Play? The nature of local peacebuilding varies significantly…
Based on the work of Afsan Bhadelia PhD, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, USA (As of August 2022: Department of Public Health, College of Health and Human Science, Purdue University, USA); Leah Odle-Benson, The Stephen Lewis Foundation, Canada; and Stephen Connor PhD, Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance (WHPCA), USA, the paper explores the question, can we build the ‘beloved community’ as the ultimate expression of the systemic transformations we seek in the world today?
Social movements are increasingly important to the process of change, but their relationship with institutional philanthropy has often proven a difficult one. What are these difficulties and how can they be resolved? Drawing on a recent paper by Halima Mahomed, Institutional philanthropy and popular organising in Africa : some initial reflections from social movement activists,…
Measuring what matters is a consultation paper designed to advance a conversation about measurement in civil society and the goal is to identify more meaningful approaches to organizational learning and accountability. The paper is based on a series of parallel and intersecting conversations, online and in-person, over a two-year period with 130 people from civil…
As popular forms of organising increasingly serve as sites for change in Africa, institutionalised private philanthropy, which has generally stayed away from such activist spaces is slowly engaging. While anecdotal knowledge exists, evidence-based analysis on these relationships is scarce. This study explored how African movements experience and see the role and nature of philanthropy in…
PSJP, the Ford Foundation Office for Southern Africa, and the Mott Foundation (South Africa) are exploring the themes of local agency and power in philanthropy and development through a series of conversations with practitioners in the field. These conversations involved two sets of dialogues in South Africa and a consultation session at the 2018 African Philanthropy…
While slogans like “think globally, act locally” have been around for decades, so much decision making about philanthropy and development aid still happens by stakeholders outside of communities. GrantCraft, a service of Foundation Center, released a new Leadership Series paper on how funders around the globe are challenging this norm by sharing and shifting power into the hands of local leadership. How Community Philanthropy Shifts Power: What Donors Can Do to Help Make That Happen by Jenny Hodgson and Anna Pond explores examples, advice, and the driving questions for donors interested in producing people-owned changes, without losing sight of their institutional interests.
The story of the Red Umbrella Fund, published five years after its creation, highlights perspectives and experiences from sex workers and funders involved in the process up to 2012 when the Fund was officially launched.
This report highlights the learning from funders and is intended to help nurture the emerging community of foundations working in systems change by codifying and sharing examples and practices from the pioneers and early adopters of this approach.
The story of the Funding Exchange, a pioneering national network in USA of social justice foundations. The story offers lessons that have practical relevance for today’s social justice funders and activists, philanthropy scholars, and foundation professionals.