Tag: Power and Philanthropy

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? Motivated by an acute sensitivity to…

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…

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…