By Ana Criquillion

Courtesy of www.alliancemagazine.org

When I started the Central American Women’s Fund (FCAM) in Nicaragua almost a decade ago, I wondered how I could involve Central American women’s movements in decision-making without creating a political mess. Decisions around money are always difficult, particularly where there are so few resources available and where organizations are used to competing for funding. Who should make those decisions?

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“I feel proud that iPartner India as a donor keeps its ear to the ground and supports such brave initiatives, irrespective of the political situation, conflict and the associated risks – we care that we are in a position where we can enable transformation and we push forward.”

Sumitra Mishra, Country Director of iPartner India talks about the important role of iPartner as an "intermediary" organisation and its unique "value added" in the process of philanthropic giving.

Read the full interview with Sumitra here.

By Linda Guinee and Barry Knight

Courtesy of www.alliancemagazine.org

The first question is: what is power? The simplest and one of the most effective formulations comes from feminist psychologist Jean Baker Miller, who defines power as ‘the capacity to produce a change’.

Probing deeper, however, reveals a complexity that is hard to fathom. There are many books and articles about what power is, where it comes from, and how it operates. According to earlier conceptions, power is the ability to force people to do something they wouldn’t have done otherwise. This is a ‘coercive’ definition of power that remains at the root of our common vernacular.

By Halima Mahomed and Bhekinkosi Moyo

Courtesy of www.alliancemagazine.org

‘The dilemma of the poor is not about resources. It is about power. If the poor have power, they will leverage the resources needed.’ Adam Habib, Vice Chancellor, University of Witwatersrand

Adam Habib’s remark, made at the 2012 African Grantmakers Network Assembly on The Role of African Philanthropy in Shifting Power from North to South, is a stark reminder to us of the need to change the way we view the relationship between resources and power. In our philanthropy world, too often power is equated with money, and the one who holds the money dictates the agenda. For philanthropic agencies, the dilemma is how to ensure that their resources are not used as tools of power and control.

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The Working Group on Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace is very excited to be co-hosting a session along with the East Africa Association of Grantmakers (EAAG)and the Africa Grantmakers Network (AGN) at the 2013 East Africa Philanthropy Conference in Mombasa, Kenya.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Session date: July 25th, 2013
Time: 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM

Today, Africa is a zone of much contestation. On the one hand we are witnessing increased external investment and amazing economic growth and on the other hand we are faced with increasing inequality and decreased accountability by those in power. In this context, what are the issues most relevant to a progressive and sustainable social change and development agenda in East Africa? And what is the level of engagement of our philanthropic practice around those issues?

Click herehere to read the June 2013 issue of the Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace newsletter.

“Ikhala Trust is definitely about a ‘power with’ approach. We cannot deny that we are powerful because we have a resource called money. However, where a community driven social justice agenda comes in is when we recognize the resources the community has and are able to say that we have power together to change a situation. What money does for us is that it leverages a relationship and solutions that are community owned.”

Bernie Dolley, Director of Ikhala Trust, Cape Town, South Africa talks about the role that philanthropy must play, the questions we as the philanthropic field need to be asking of ourselves, the value of small grants, and overcoming barriers posed my emphasis on quantifiable outcomes in philanthropy.

Read the full interview with Bernie here.

White Courtesy Telephone has reposted the following article, which will appear in a special issue of the National Civic Review titled Philanthropy & Resident Engagement: The Promise for Democracy, available October 2013. It will feature case studies, reports, and essays on the resident engagement experiences of public and private foundations. This article was co-authored by Barry Knight, Director of CENTRIS-UK, and Albert Ruesga, President & CEO of the Greater New Orleans Foundation.

It goes by many names: citizen participation; community or resident engagement; “bottom-up” grantmaking; grassroots philanthropy. For some community foundations in the US, it’s a pro-forma exercise; for others, a source of power and pride. For a significant number it’s still little more than a fond dream, something wished for but somehow never attained.

Read the rest of the article here.

We often talk about the roles of foundations: what we can and cannot do, what our boards and donors and other constituencies will react to us doing; what our internal systems and structures and budgets allow us to do… all very real parameters within which we work. We also often talk about the added advantage of foundations and how flexible and agile and innovative we are – in some cases much more so than we think; in others, much less than we would like to believe. But, do we talk enough about what those advantages (relative as they are) translate into in practical terms or, even more so, hold ourselves to account on whether we optimize the roles that these advantages allow us to play in society?

By Barry Knight, Chandrika Sahai and Halima Mahomed

Courtesy of www.alliancemagazine.org

Increased concentration of wealth and increasing inequality are the conditions likely to give rise to philanthropy. This was true with Carnegie and Rockefeller in the US and it seems to be true in the BRICS countries now. In other words, these are the very conditions likely to give rise to foundations. What can foundations do to address them?

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