Sustaining community philanthropy

Some Alliance special features spring up suddenly out of nowhere, some germinate for years. This is one of the latter – I’ve been thinking about doing another feature on community philanthropy ever since we did the last one, in September 2002. Why?

If you are involved in international philanthropy, you can’t help being struck by the enormous enthusiasm people feel for community philanthropy, especially community foundations. It is as if, in countries where grantmaking organizations as we know them are thin on the ground, they will provide the missing piece of the puzzle.

But will they? Can they? One thing seems clear: if these emerging organizations are to be sustainable, we will need to look beyond the traditional North American model. ‘People are beginning to ask if an endowment is needed to ensure credibility, permanence and independence,’ writes guest editor Shannon St John.

Can a broad base of donors ensure sustainability, as in Korea, the Philippines and Nebraska, USA? How can companies and communities work together? What can organized philanthropy learn from indigenous traditions? These are just some of the issues highlighted in this issue of Alliance.

Looking for your feedback

As I write this short editorial, I’m acutely aware of the difficulty of mentioning just a few articles out of the wealth of material we have assembled. I’m also acutely aware of a criticism that we’ve been hearing from some of our readers – that Alliance is just too packed, too dense. This is a natural result of our global remit: we want to reflect what’s happening all over the world. But if the result is indigestion for our readers, we may need to think again.

We’d like to find out your views on what we do. Here in the UK, for the first time ever, we’re holding focus groups to try to find out more about what our readers think of Alliance, what they like and don’t like, how they think it could be improved. We’re also conducting some phone interviews with readers in other countries.

Inevitably, this will include only a very few of our readers, but we would love to hear from all of you. If you have any comments on Alliance – on content, format or whatever – please do let us have them. You can write to me direct at carolineh@allavida.org.
 
Caroline Hartnell, Editor