International Giving by U.S. Community Foundations: Local Communities with Global Reach (original) (raw)
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The Global Role of U.S. Foundations
2010
Established in 1956 and today supported by close to 550 foundations, the Foundation Center is the nation's leading authority on philanthropy, connecting nonprofi ts and the grantmakers supporting them to tools they can use and information they can trust. The Center maintains the most comprehensive database on U.S. grantmakers and their grants-a robust, accessible knowledge bank for the sector. It also operates research, education, and training programs designed to advance knowledge of philanthropy at every level. Thousands of people visit the Center's web site each day and are served in its fi ve regional library/learning centers and its network of more than 425 funding information centers located in public libraries, community foundations, and educational institutions in every U.S. state and beyond. For more information, please visit foundationcenter.org or call (212) 620-4230.
American Foundations: Their Roles and Contributions to Society
American Foundations Roles and Contributions, 2010
Among all industrial societies, the United States has long granted the most scope to philanthropy. While foundations exist in many countries—most prominently in Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, and Japan—the United States stands out: in no modern society are foundations more numerous, and nowhere have they become so prominent and visible. Compared with their counterparts in Europe and Asia, the philanthropic foundations of the United States look back to a longer and more continuous history. In this book, however, our concern is not to explain why so many foundations have appeared in the United States or why they are more numerous and more influential here than in other countries. Instead, we ask, What difference have they made over time, and what difference are they making today? What have they contributed to American society over time, and what are they contributing today? How did foundations achieve impact in the past, and how are they attempting to make a difference today? It would be wrong to conclude on a note that suggests that all foundations subscribe to any single set of approaches. Instead, we step back for a moment to emphasize the extraordinary diversity of foundation size, approach, and purpose and to suggest that acceptance of that diversity is increasing. Recent decades have seen a remarkable and still little-studied flowering of religious foundations devoted not only to the oldest-established mainline Protestant denominations but also to evangelical Protestantism in many of its varieties, to the many dimensions of Judaism, and even to Catholic causes that had long made minimal use of foundations.38 The liberal National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy critiques the field from a progressive standpoint; the Philanthropy Roundtable and the Capital Research Center comment from the right. In its efforts to provide an umbrella for the entire field, the Council on Foundations has set up a number of specialized committees. Foundation program officers have organized a large and increasing number of grant makers in particular fields ranging from aging and the arts to the environment and health to the U.S. International Grantmaking project . Hence it is no surprise that those who call for new foundation approaches do not speak with a single voice.
Private Foundations’ Giving for Development in 2013-2015
OECD Development Co-operation Working Papers, 2018
Ongoing efforts to better reflect private philanthropic giving in OECD-DAC statistics on development finance EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This working paper highlights the main results of the 2016-17 OECD data Survey on Global Private Philanthropy for Development and describes how this exercise relates to-and aims to complement-the existing regular data collection on development finance by the Development Cooperation Directorate (DCD). The data survey aimed at better understanding who the main philanthropic actors active in development are. By aligning its scope and reporting format with ODA standards, the survey ensured that data collected from private philanthropic foundations were comparable, also with other development finance flows. Moreover, it also aimed to explore the extent to which such data were readily available in foundations' internal systems. The survey gathered project-level data from 143 foundations all over the world. In general, the results and coverage of the survey were considered to be very good and showed that collecting comparable data from private philanthropic foundations was feasible. The survey results reveal that private foundations gave USD 23.9 billion for development from 2013 to 2015. While the main beneficiary region was Africa (28%), a large share of the foundations' activities had a multi-regional or unallocated scope. 53% of foundations' total giving was provided for health and population policies/programmes & reproductive health. 97% of the funds were channelled to/through implementing partners (the remaining 3% related to operational foundations' activities and scholarships/fellowships). So far, only four philanthropic foundations report on a regular basis to the OECD according to the ODA standards: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)-since 2009-and the United Postcode Lotteries (UPL, including the Dutch Postcode Lottery, Swedish Postcode Lottery and People's Postcode Lottery)-since 2017. The survey results suggest that more foundations could be in a position to start sharing their data with the OECD. In 2018, the OECD-DCD will pursue its statistical engagement with the largest philanthropic foundations, building on the BMGF and UPL's experiences.
The Special Standing of Community Foundations as Sponsors of Donor-Advised Funds
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Accelerating growth of donor advised funds has attracted vocal advocates and critics whose arguments are fundamentally about definition (the purpose of philanthropy), values (good philanthropy versus bad philanthropy), regulation (government or market), policy (the role and value of tax incentives), and sponsorship (for profit or nonprofit agency). Community foundations assert a special standing as sponsors of donor advised funds (DAF) because of their unique role in communities as anchor institutions whose mission is to serve the interests of their community. The question is, is this role grounds enough to justify and preserve the distinctive value of donor advised funds held by community foundations in their present form? THE PURPOSE OF PHILANTHROPY Without going into exhaustive definition, philanthropy is generally defined as private initiatives for public good, and we can go further to define it as to improve the wellbeing of humankind by preventing and solving social problems. ...
Nazita Lajevardi, PhD Student University of California, San Diego Nicole Rigillo, PhD McGill University, Montreal Mirle Rabinowitz-Bussell, PhD University of California, San Diego James Stauch, MEDes Mount Royal University This literature review seeks to contextualize the Canadian foundation grantmaking milieu with respect to international examples, with particular reference to social innovation. It provides an overview of comparative contexts that either (1) resemble Canada or (2) are distinguishable from it, to generate a set of best practices relating to investments in social innovation by grantmaking foundations – both through grants to other organizations and via direct programming. In order to highlight a diverse range of socially innovative forms and practices, we examine best practices in grantmaking in two broad contexts: First, in three countries that share a similar history and institutional landscape with Canada (United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand), and second, in three countries where grantmaking has developed along very different historical trajectories and where it has taken on different institutional forms. France, Sweden and Italy are home to unique foundation forms and grantmaking practices that differ in the services they provide, the laws that give rise to their respective organizations, and the core principles that shape their practices. The review is divided into three parts. In the introduction, we provide a context for our review, define grantmaking in in the two broad contexts described above, and offer a definition of social innovation broad enough to capture these diverse contexts and approaches. In part 1, we describe the institutional forms and structure that grantmaking takes in the countries selected in our review, asking which of these forms can reasonably and usefully be extended to the Canadian context. Here we also touch on various features such as sector size, history, culture, assets, legal barriers, and international grantmaking, and explain the basis upon which countries are grouped together as similar or dissimilar. Part 2 examines social innovation in grantmaking through the use of individual country case studies that illustrate how grant-makers are applying novel techniques and strategies of grantmaking with the intention of having a greater social impact. This includes consideration of strategies such as using alternative community finance or investment models, scaling up programming, collaboration, pooled grants, cross-sector partnerships, technology and data sharing, the use of impact metrics, and/or grantmaking across international borders.
Donors working together: The story of the Global Alliance for Community Philanthropy
2019
From 2013 – 2019, six U.S.?based donor organizations, all active internationally, came together with the support of the GFCF to work as an alliance to build and promote community philanthropy as a global movement. There were three underlying factors that made this initiative unusual:The Alliance was a mix of private and public donor entities, who do not often work together in this way.It was based on a commitment to work collaboratively over a number of years around an idea.A key motivation was to promote new approaches to community philanthropy as an important part of the development portfolio to donors operating internationally.Surely, this makes it a story worth telling – not just to see if the collaboration achieved its goals, but also to explore what it means to be part of an 'alliance' and what lessons this Alliance may have for other donors across the globe seeking to collaborate in new ways to make a difference
Providing foundations : philanthropy, global policy and administration
Oxford University Press eBooks, 2019
Philanthropy is gaining renewed policy prominence. Focusing on the institutional expressions of philanthropy-philanthropic foundations-this chapter critically explores foundations' various contributions to, and roles in, global policy. Emphasising the need to move beyond traditional perspectives, dominant focal points and well-established questions around philanthropy, the chapter argues for more synthesised, critically reflective, engagement with philanthropy in global policy research. To this end, the importance of examining historic antecedents of contemporary developments in philanthropy and the need for a stronger evidence-base are outlined. The chapter concludes by discussing the spectrum of research opportunities philanthropy provides for the global policy and transnational administration field.