By suggesting that our vast network of social services isn’t adequate to the task of meeting human needs, the everyday charitable acts of Americans “threaten” to carve out islands of independent civic initiative, free from the heavy-handed guidance and arrogant expertise of philanthropic reformers.
Progressive critiques of private philanthropy ignore prior public experience with government spending.
As establishment philanthropy defends its position in American society, it would do well to tend to more than just one flank.
And another option for grantmakers to at least consider.
In wake of USC Center on Philanthropy & Public Policy’s must-read report, third of three-part series offers different take on applying theory, facing reality, and learning lessons for future giving.
In wake of USC Center on Philanthropy & Public Policy’s must-read report, second of three-part series tracks depressingly increasing evidence of failure.
In wake of USC Center on Philanthropy & Public Policy’s must-read report, first of three-part series overviews initial ambitions and aspirations of effort led by city’s funders to deal with “wicked problem.”
Civil society should not be seen by experts, or funders, merely as a tool to solve social problems.
Not skew corporate pronouncements and practices toward philanthropic purposes.
Sector-bending has always been a symptom of a larger intellectual problem: utopianism.