Resources

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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?

August 2022

Understanding Resilience in International Development

In the discourse of development and philanthropy, the term resilience is used across the spectrum between two poles. In some contexts, resilience means weathering the transition to change (such as for the three case studies mentioned above), while in others it is used to protect the structural frames of the status quo and so to absolve the state and other actors of responsibility. In this paper, we explore this paradox. The goal is to develop an understanding of resilience in development and philanthropy so that it can be applied more meaningfully in our work.

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…

August 2020

Donor Collaboratives and Devolved Decision Making: It’s About the Fundamentals

This new report by Halima Mohamed explores the structure and mechanisms of three donor collaborations that include some level of devolved decision-making  – The Multi Agency Grantmaking Initiative (MAGI), the Joint Gender Fund (JGF) and the Constitutionalism Fund (CF), but then also sought to explore some of the core questions in relation to five other…

February 2020

Philanthropy in Indonesia

This paper is part of a larger study by Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace (PSJP), started in 2016, to review the current state of philanthropy in emerging economies and the role philanthropy is playing in the world today. This is the fifth report from the study. It aims to throw light on current developments in, obstacles to, and possibilities for philanthropy in Indonesia, especially highlighting innovations and new initiatives. This has been done partly through looking at existing research, but mainly through a series of conversations with people who have been trying to promote, support or strengthen different areas of philanthropy in the country.

February 2020

Leadership and Development

Although widely used, and viewed as an important ingredient in successful philanthropy and development, there is no common understanding of what people mean by the term leadership or how its value is demonstrated in practice. In March 2018, when PSJP ran an exploratory webinar for civil society practitioners to identify hot topics they wanted to…

December 2019

Understanding sustainability

This is the fourth paper in PSJP’s Defining Key Concepts series and it looks at the concept of ‘sustainability’ in development and philanthropy. (The first paper, published in October 2018, looked at the concept of ‘Dignity’ and the second, published in March 2019, looked at ‘Leadership’. The third paper published last month (Nov 2019) was…