The new challenges of global philanthropy
Hard lessons for economic development
1 June 2007
Alliance magazine
While foundations around the world have had some real achievements in building ‘social capital’, they cannot make the kinds of investments in marginalized communities that will allow them to become economically self-sustaining. Bottom-up foundation-funded economic development projects are not enough to alter the distribution of wealth. So what is to be done? What foundations can do is to act as convenors, bringing in the private and public sectors as partners in order to try to create the basis for a community’s long-term well-being. But this is a long-term strategy, and a political rather than an economic one.
