In 2011 the Taso Foundation, as part of the partnership grant from Global Fund for Women started work with the aim to develop a draft law on philanthropy and promote the culture of philanthropy in Georgia. This program is still underway, having been continued with the support of Open Society – Georgia Foundation.

Beginnings
Besides devastating people and bringing about humanitarian disaster and loss of territories, the 2008 war also attracted support from the West a small portion of which was allocated to civil society organizations to work with internally displaced citizens. At the end of 2008, Taso Foundation joined the Foundations for Peace (FFP) Network and became familiar with the concept of ‘Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace’.

Por Chandrika Sahai y Ana Criquillion
Read this post in English here.

Courtesy of www.alliancemagazine.org

The September 2013 issue of Alliance Magazine focuses on philanthropy and power. In his article, ‘The power of money’ guest editor Stephen Pittam explores how philanthropy can best use the power brought by increased resources, as it enters its “second golden age”, to increase its impact on social justice and promoting a more equal society.

Contributions include Linda Guinee and Barry Knight on how to define power in philanthropy in their article ‘‘Whats power got do with it?’

In her article, ‘From grantee to grantmaker’, Ana Criquillion talks about the grantmaking processes of the Central American Women’s Fund (FCAM) that are grantee led and help level the playing field between donors and grantees.

By Stephen Pittam

Courtesy of www.alliancemagazine.org

Six months after I had started working for the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT) a close friend said to me, ‘you have changed – you expect people to listen to you.’ It was a good reminder of the best piece of advice I received on getting the job. Eric Adams of the Barrow Cadbury Trust told me, ‘keep your feet on the ground and you will be alright.’

It is difficult to keep your feet on the ground when working in a foundation because you are inevitably placed in a position of power. When meeting grant applicants I was always conscious that for them the meeting could mean someone’s job was at stake. With money comes power. And, as the saying goes, power corrupts. As time went on, I grew more accustomed to living with that power but I also grew increasingly uncomfortable about some of the manifestations of the power relationships that philanthropy engenders. There are many sides to this topic. It is great to be able to explore some of them, both positive and negative, in this issue of Alliance.

By the following members of the Working Group on Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace: Ana Criquillion, Barry Knight, Atallah Kuttab, Halima Mahomed, Stephen Pittam, Chandrika Sahai and Suzanne Siskel.

Courtesy of www.alliancemagazine.org

On 8 July members of the Working Group on Social Justice and Peace held a webinar to talk about power and philanthropy. Something that isn’t much discussed, it seems. ‘The issue of power in philanthropy feels like the elephant in the room,’ said one participant. ‘How little we talk about power within philanthropy,’ said another. One particularly interesting issue that came up was the relationship between power and visibility: does greater visibility for foundations mean more power? Or does greater power come from a relative decline in the power of other institutions? What follows is not a fully-fledged article with a beginning,
a middle and an end but some extracts from a fascinating conversation among a group of people who know each other well and think about these issues a lot.

Click on the attachment to read the article.

By Albert Ruesga

Courtesy of www.alliancemagazine.org

‘Let not thy will roar, when thy power can but whisper.’
Dr Thomas Fuller

Wealthy donors are typically the lifeblood of a community foundation. These individuals and families draw their power from many of the institutions that define contemporary life in a capitalist society – not only financial institutions, but also the many laws, policies, electoral arrangements and even networks of formal and informal relationships that enable wealth to perpetuate wealth. It’s no wonder, then, that the affluent (and I include myself in this class) often want to preserve the status quo. Residents of low-income communities, by contrast, are far less eager to leave things as they are. From their perspective, what’s needed goes beyond a few changes around the margins. Society must shift in fundamental ways for justice to prevail.

Click on the attachment to read the full article.

By Avila Kilmurray

Courtesy of www.alliancemagazine.org

‘This is how the verb “to participate” is conjugated – I participate, you participate, they decide.’ This comment relates to international development aid but could be echoed by grant recipients of many philanthropic programmes. Who decides on the allocation of resources and how?

By Suzanne Siskel and Anna-Nanine Pond

Courtesy of www.alliancemagazine.org

How powerful are foundations relative to other actors in society? With few exceptions, foundations and NGOs pale in size, programme scope and budgets beside governments, international development agencies and multinational corporations. Yet, too often, grantmakers act as if the limited transactional clout of giving away money affords them special power. To achieve anything of substance, foundations should consider themselves as actors within an evolving social change ecosystem.

Click on the attachment to read the full article.

By Chandrika Sahai and Ana Criquillion
This post is also available here in Spanish.

“Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can effect change - it can not only move us, it makes us move.”
Ossie Davis (American actor and playwright)

For the first time ever, Tamil and Muslim students from Jaffna District in the North of Sri Lanka came together and produced radio dramas on social issues. They wrote the scripts, and ‘acted’ them out over the radio. The radio station received more than 10,000 text messages from listeners lauding this initiative.

Further south in Badulla, a multi-cultural group of students from 3 schools (for Muslims, Sinhalese and Tamil respectively) was formed after they participated in workshops where they produced 10 stories for digital story telling. This initiative was endorsed by the Provincial Director of Education, as well as the principals and teachers of the three schools.