Author Archive:
Timothy Ogden
The COF conference: a few thoughts not related to impact investing
A few closing thoughts from the 2015 Council of Foundations’ annual conference not related to impact investing: I came across a couple of intriguing ideas to solve vexing human capital problems in philanthropy and the …
The state of impact investing, Day 3 of the COF conference: how relevant are foundations?
As I mentioned in my post from Day 2 of the Council of Foundations’ annual conference in San Francisco, while foundation staff were packing rooms to talk about deploying some of their capital into impact …
The state of impact investing, Day 2 of the COF conference: bubbles and unexplored frontiers
The diffuse state of impact investing in the foundation world was evident again in sessions at day two of the Council of Foundations’ annual conference in San Francisco (and outside of them). The main impact …
The state of impact investing: reflections from day one of the Council on Foundations’ conference
A few years ago I swore off attending philanthropy conferences for the simple reason that I felt like I was hearing the same things over and over again. I’m attending the Council of Foundations’ annual …
Why philanthropists should not fund the arts
The recent Alliance special feature on arts funding in philanthropy, despite its broad view, fails to take seriously the fundamental question: should philanthropic funds be devoted to the arts? Remarkably, although many of the pieces …
Detroit’s Grand Bargain: a new kind of philanthropy?
In November, the city of Detroit emerged from the largest municipal bankruptcy in the history of the United States. A key part of the city’s deal with its creditors, generally termed ‘the Grand Bargain’, hinged …
What about non-profits’ behaviour?
There are indeed many questions about how the mingling of investment and charity will affect the behaviour of donors, as Martin Brookes writes in the June issue of Alliance. I was pleased to see these …
The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, dictators, and the forgotten rights of the poor
William Easterly is hard to categorize because he fits so poorly into the ideological boxes that dominate current discussion about aid and anti-poverty philanthropy. His long-running ‘debate’ with Jeffrey Sachs over the Millennium Villages Project …
Reinventing Philanthropy: A framework for more effective giving
One wonders how long after the invention of the concept of philanthropy there was a call to reform and reinvent it. It can’t have been long ‒ Maimonides wrote a guide to better giving in …
Why Philanthropy Matters
The American wealth and philanthropy culture is a mystery to many, even in the United States. How is it that the culture of generosity emerged here, dwarfing that of even the UK from which it …
