This article first appeared on May 17, 2014, in Latest from Alliance - the blog of the Allaince Magazine

A large part of the conversations at the 25th EFC Annual General Assembly and Conference in Sarajevo have drawn focus to the uneasy realities of the ‘European project’.  Framed by the backdrop of Sarajevo – a city that knows much about conflict and peacebuilding, continuous rains and news of the worst floods in the Bosnia in 120 years, discussions at the conference have been hard-hitting, forcing a critical questioning of the role of philanthropy in Europe today.

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?