The Working Group on Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace is thrilled to share with you Effective Philanthropy: Another Take, a collection of 11 stories describing a philanthropic intervention against some form of injustice (socioeconomic and/or political) at a local, national or global scale.

Each story addresses seven key questions grantmakers wrestle with in order to effect systemic social change.

What is the problem? What is the solution? How do we address it?  What are the risks?What are the challenges? What was achieved? What next?

The collection includes stories of successful grants for:

May 2016

Effective philanthropy: another take (edited by Caroline Hartnell and Andrew Milner) is a collection of 11 stories describing a philanthropic intervention against some form of injustice (socioeconomic and/or political) at a local, national or global scale. These stories are told through the lens of a grantmaker illuminating the sorts of considerations, dilemmas, and uncertainties a grantmaker might wrestle with when making a grant to effect positive social change. They delve deep into the analysis of the problem, the solution, the strategy, and tactics used to address it, the risks and challenges involved, and the impact of the philanthropic support.

The purpose in telling these stories is to broaden the circle of philanthropy practitioners whose aim is to help produce lasting change in the lives of people and communities, by showing how such grantmaking is done and giving evidence of its impact.

The stories broadly fall into three categories:

Supporting marginalized groups and communities to achieve change in their own lives

Fondo Centroamericano de Mujeres (FCAM)/Central American Women’s Fund (CAWF), Managua, Nicaragua and San Francisco, USA
Written by Andrew Milner

FCAM and the swallows

‘I remember the case of Veronica. While she was working [as a sex worker], a client shot her in the stomach and ran off. We, her colleagues and fellow sex workers, took her to hospital in Managua. We also hustled around to look for blood for her because the hospital didn’t have blood of her type and we took it in turns to stay with her until they took her to be operated on. She was really bad. The bullet punctured her organs and she had to use a drain for two years. Luckily, they operated on her again and it went well. But in this case, justice was never done because the police wanted her to make a deposition straightaway without taking into account that she was critically ill in hospital. Later, the case was filed away and she didn’t want to reopen it for fear that her assailant would come back and kill her.’

Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT), York, UK
Written by Andrew Milner

Mission
At a recent meeting of the Board of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT), the Trustees wrestled with the wording of a mission statement: how to capture the essence of the organisation in a few words; how to include a sense of the ambition of the Trust, whilst recognizing the limitations of its knowledge and resources; how to acknowledge the willingness of the Trust to fund unpopular, even controversial, projects and organizations, whilst recognizing that the real risks are taken by the grantees on the front line of social change? After deep reflection, some humour and a timely coffee break, an interim statement was agreed: We are a Quaker trust which seeks to transform the world by supporting people who address the root causes of conflict and injustice.

Multi Agency Grants Initiative (MAGI) in South Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa
Written by Andrew Milner

Zaide Harneker is a programme manager at MAGI. She recalls her first meeting with one of MAGI’s grantees, the Lethabong Legal Advice Centre in South Africa’s North West Province. Their office was a tiny two-roomed house with an outside toilet. She, the programme director and the paralegal, the two people who ran the organization, and the young book-keeper sat in one cramped room. The other room was full of coffins. As the meeting went on, she became increasingly uneasy in the presence of these grim receptacles. Finally, she couldn’t help but ask: why are there coffins in this house? ‘We sell them,’ replied the director, John Moerane. He explained that he and his daughter were in business selling coffins. He used his share of the proceeds to raise money for the advice centre and to pay rent.

Ford Foundation Peace and Social Justice Program, Global Civil Society Portfolio (GCS), New York City, USA
Written by Andrew Milner

‘We the invisible’
You work for an NGO that is trying to improve the access to health and education of the poor and vulnerable. By and large, you are doing well. But one day, the municipality bulldozes the homes of those you are working for and you realize that in the face of such summary and categoric action, your good work and your good intentions come to nothing. This was the stark truth that faced Sheela Patel, one of the founders of what came to be known as SPARC (the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres) and Chair of Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI).