On March 6, 2015, approximately 40 people from Europe and the United States gathered at Stanford University to discuss why strategic philanthropy has not been more widely adopted in the United States and Europe. The symposium, Strategic Philanthropy: Comparative Perspectives on the Way Forward, was sponsored by the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society at Stanford University and the Centre for Social Investment at Heidelberg University, and co-hosted by Paul Brest (Stanford), Helmut Anheier (Heidelberg), and Bernhard Lorentz (Stanford).
To set the stage for the discussion, Paul Brest, a long-time advocate of strategic philanthropy, wrote the essay, “Strategic Philanthropy and Its Discontents.” In it, he examines different modes of grantmaking, inquiring whether the barriers to the practice of strategic philanthropy arise from its underlying concepts or from its implementation and, if the latter, whether those barriers can be overcome.
The essay and the discussion that followed at the symposium were so interesting that we decided to share it with you, SSIR's readers. We are reprinting the essay as well as written responses to the essay from a number of people at the symposium and some who weren’t.
Strategic philanthropy may be unattractive to donors precisely because it is similar to the “strategic” approach donors used to accumulate their wealth.
Strategic philanthropy may be unattractive to donors precisely because it is similar to the “strategic” approach donors used to accumulate their wealth.
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