May 7, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
Kavita N. Ramdas, chief executive of the Global Fund for Women, takes to task how Bill Gates and other businesspeople-turned-philanthropists are seeking to ameliorate global problems.
In an essay on openDemocracy.org, a Web site devoted to discussing democracy and human rights, Ms. Ramdas says so-called philanthrocapitalism is flawed.
“Despite many good intentions, this version of philanthropy is all too often beset by a hubristic assumption of its ability to resolve the world’s most deep-rooted problems,” she writes.
It fails to examine “the root causes of current economic or political inequality and injustice,” she writes.
To create long-term change, a broad discussion is needed between wealthy donors, nonprofit leaders, government, companies, and advocates for social justice. They need to struggle “with the wisdom contained in [black feminist] Audrey Lorde’s words: ‘you cannot use the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house,’” Ms. Ramdas writes.
OpenDemocracy has other essays from nonprofit leaders on the value of mixing philanthropy and business.
Read a Chronicle opinion article on the subject by Michael Edwards, author of Just Another Emperor? The Myths and Realities of Philanthrocapitalism.
What do you think? Is philanthrocapitalism unable to create lasting social change?
