Resource Category: Social Justice Philanthropy General

May 2024

Towards the ‘Beloved Community’

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?

January 2021

Beyond us and them

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,…

October 2020

Measuring what matters

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…

September 2020

Institutional philanthropy and popular organising in Africa : some initial reflections from social movement activists

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…

September 2018

Local agency and power in philanthropy and development

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…

April 2018

How community philanthropy shifts power

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.

November 2016

Claiming Agency: Reflecting on TrustAfrica’s First Decade

Published in celebration of TrustAfrica’s 10th anniversary, Claiming Agency: Reflecting on TrustAfrica’s First Decade takes an in-depth look its work as an African-led foundation that set out to do things differently. Edited by Halima Mahomed and Elizabeth Coleman, the book has been published in partnership with Weaver Press. Founded in 2006, when solutions to Africa’s challenges were often developed outside its borders, TrustAfrica sought to…