Global Philanthropy Forum

Event 8th annual Global Philanthropy Forum: Five Crises Facing the Next President; Cross-Sector Solutions
Date 22-24 April
Venue Washington DC, USA
Organizer Global Philanthropy Forum

More than 500 attendees from philanthropy, government and private enterprise gathered at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington DC from 22 to 24 April for the annual conference of the Global Philanthropy Forum. The organization’s mission of creating an investor community dedicated to international causes drove the five- track focus on poverty alleviation, climate change, health care, education, and post-conflict reconstruction, overlaid by the theme of cross-sector collaboration.

Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton headlined the first day’s agenda, warming the stage for a procession of royals (the Aga Khan spoke later that evening) and government officials touting the benefits of private sector cooperation. Matching the government presence on stage were thought leaders from the non-profit and corporate sectors, including representatives from the Gates, Rockefeller and Hewlett Foundations (Gates and Rockefeller were among the event sponsors) and from sector-specific charities such as Partners in Health, Teach for America and KIPP, Acumen Fund and ACCION International.

It was taken as given that public-private cooperation is a desirable goal, preferable to any player going it alone. Indeed, there was a tendency towards axiom – investing in women delivers high returns; microfinance relieves poverty – and little grappling with more nuanced issues, such as what to do when government employees do not do their jobs, or when philanthropy props up dysfunctional public systems. Unchallenged as well was the view that private funds be used to innovate and test new ideas that, once proven, should be brought to scale via government infrastructure.

Axiom morphed into stalwart pragmatism in the first breakout session I attended on health care, which focused on success stories in the so-called neglected tropical diseases, a group of 13 underfunded and preventable or treatable illnesses, such as intestinal worms, river blindness, elephantiasis and others. Dr Don Hopkins from the Carter Center, the organization largely behind the successful control of guinea worm in much of the world, advised non-profits in the health space to identify the key players in a region and to ‘not beat your head against a wall – go with the countries that are ready to go’. Kari Stoever, managing director of the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Disease Control, said she was not concerned about the impact on philanthropy of the global economic crisis because ‘there’s a lot of waste’ in the system. She also advised attendees to ‘focus on the things that we know we can deliver successfully’.
 
The second breakout on scaling health infrastructure for rural populations addressed some of the more difficult realities of working with governments and rural communities. Jean Duff of the Center for Interfaith Action on Global Poverty discussed the challenge of working with religious communities that are ‘doctrinal, small-scale, under-funded and more concerned with savings souls than saving lives’, which was a refreshing dose of candour given the traditional view of faith-based caregivers as angels of impoverished health systems. Her organization works in Nigeria, Mozambique and elsewhere to create networks of intra- and inter-faith congregations to deliver health services, a tough job given the ‘lack of connectedness between religious congregations in rural communities in Africa, even among those that share the same faith’.

Donna Barry of Partners in Health spoke as well about how much easier it would be to work outside of existing public health systems and build private clinics, but said that such an approach was impossible to scale and maintain. In contrast, Michael Chu, a Harvard Business School professor and co-founder of the Mexico-based IGNIA Fund that focuses on social entrepreneurship, said that direct government cooperation was only ‘one way’ to address health needs. One of his portfolio companies, Primedic, is experimenting with a membership-based health service in Mexico to provide private primary care.

The education sessions grappled slightly more consistently with tough issues, most notably the challenging boundaries of responsibility between government, teachers, communities and families. The more controversial subjects included proper training and award systems for teachers, when children’s formal education should begin, and whether improving learning outcomes require government to train parents in how to care for and teach their children. Although the discussion was lively, there was very little evidence available for any one position over another, and the discussion was curiously dominated by developed world examples and issues.

Regardless, the session content could have been mostly irrelevant as attendees seemed far more interested in each other than the ‘experts’. The lobby never fully emptied during sessions, and each break snapped with the exchange of business cards. The goal of the meetings, says president Jane Wales, is to create ‘learning communities’ to complement the ‘perpetual matchmaking’ she does to connect members with like interests. By that measure, the event seems a success: 83 per cent of conference respondents report that they call on fellow attendees when developing giving strategies.

Laura Starita is the managing editor of Philanthropy Action, an online journal for high-net-worth donors. Email laura.starita@philanthropyaction.com

For more information
www.philanthropyforum.org