Philanthropy

You can't establish credibility without building trust, but trust takes time to develop. What can you do if you don't have time on your side?

Satisfied with doing good, too few foundations work strategically to do better.

Five lessons from a survey of more than 600 companies.

Midsize nonprofits in the United States offer some of the most innovative solutions to our most pressing problems, but they are starved for growth funding because no efficient market mechanism exists to guide capital to them. In the absence of reliable information about the relative performance of nonprofits, billions of philanthropic dollars annually are distributed […]

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This week in Washington: the eighth annual Global Philanthropy Forum. Jane Wales is co-founder of the forum, the director of the Program on Philanthropy and Social Innovation at the Aspen Institute, and the host of the nationally syndicated radio show It’s Your World on NPR. The Philanthropy Forum brings together influential individuals interested in enabling […]

Private philanthropists have helped propel some of the most important social-impact success stories of the past century: Virtually eradicating polio globally....

Within philanthropy circles, one of the major subtexts of the earthquake in Haiti was the phenomenal success of text-message fundraising appeals. Nonprofits are abuzz about it. The Red Cross alone raised more than $30 million via text donations by the middle of February, more than 10% of the total funds raised. This form of communication […]

Seven years ago, Bank of America launched Neighborhood Builders®, a program that provides grants and, more importantly, leadership training to managers...

Information is a public good.

When it comes to philanthropy, executives increasingly see themselves as caught between critics demanding ever higher levels of "corporate social responsibility"...

Academics, government, and civic groups can all benefit from greater access.

Leverage is the mantra of the times in philanthropy, and rightly so. People want to know that the charities they support are using donations as effectively...

When it comes to philanthropy, executives increasingly see themselves as caught between critics demanding ever higher levels of "corporate social responsibility"...

Philanthropic organizations, exempt from the accountability imposed on business by markets or on government by voters, are free to experiment and take...

This season of giving often brings a focus on corporate philanthropy — on giving. But it’s hard to do well. If you wanted to design a corporate philanthropy program to have minimum impact, what would you do? Give out lots of grants in amounts too small to make a real difference. Back pet charities, not […]

Forced to explain why businesses should continue to give money away while laying off workers, contributions managers in hundreds of companies have come...

The collapse of Madonna's high-profile effort to build a school for impoverished girls in Malawi has made headlines around the world. The singer's celebrity...

It’s about creating a balance of grant types, categorized by operations, growth, and risk.

A study of theaters and their artistic reputations.