March 27, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
While foundations are able to do more than the World Bank or governments to support human rights and innovative development projects abroad, they are failing to do so, writes Steven Lawry, senior research fellow at Harvard University’s Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations.
“Foundations in my view are not making full use of their freedoms to support innovation, help people claim essential rights, and pursue complex problems over the long-term. In the process, they run the danger of becoming more like conventional, public-sector donors, and adding little that is distinctive to the funding mix,” he writes on the center’s Humanitarian and International Development NGOs blog.
Mr. Lawry identifies three factors contributing to “philanthropy’s retreat from ambitious international funding agendas.” Foundations are under growing scrutiny in the United States, which makes them risk averse; they are focused on showing short-term, measurable results, which is difficult to do with entrenched social problems like global poverty; and they are not letting grantees lead the efforts.
In future blog entries, Mr. Lawry will explore each of these ideas in more depth.
What do you think? Are foundations failing to be ambitious abroad? Click on the comment button below to share your views.
