Reports from Alliance magazine

The Philanthropy UK Newsletter is grateful to Alliance magazine for its permission to reproduce the following summaries of its event reports. The full reports can be accessed at www.alliancemagazine.org.

by Caroline Hartnell

25-27 March 2009, Oxford

This year’s Skoll World Forum was nothing if not inspiring. The record attendance – 785 delegates from 65 countries and six continents despite the downturn – was surely evidence of the level of interest in social entrepreneurship. Unusually, investors were notable by their presence. But the question remains: can we go beyond inspiration? The potential of social entrepreneurship tends to be much hyped, and nowhere more than at the Forum, which does a fine job of highlighting the achievements of some outstanding individuals. But can social entrepreneurs deliver what is expected of them?

The short film with which the Forum closed encapsulates my doubt. Beginning with a sequence of disasters that occurred in 2008 – collapsing ice sheets, the earthquake in China, poor Americans losing their homes, plummeting stock markets – accompanied by some rather pensive music, the film ends with the achievements of prominent social entrepreneurs like Partners in Health, YouthBuild and Riders for Health, the music this time being almost triumphal. The message: all around the world social entrepreneurs are making a difference.

But can they make enough difference? Unless their efforts can be scaled up and connected, they will surely not be up to dealing with the world of disaster shown in the first half of the film.

One outstanding session at the Forum focused on ‘early detection and prevention’ in healthcare. The stories were deeply moving, both the scale of the problems and what had been achieved. Another excellent session on scaling up presented, among others, an impressive organization called Embarq that works to develop sustainable transport systems in cities like Mexico City and Istanbul. But these sessions tend to be stronger on description than analysis. They make little attempt to understand why some organizations are able to scale up and what it is about them that makes them successful.

Where a conference brings together a group of people around a particular issue, say climate change or social entrepreneurship, wouldn’t it be wonderful if it could offer more than inspiration and good networking opportunities, and really advance thinking in the field?

Caroline Hartnell is Editor of Alliance magazine. caroline@alliancemagazine.org.

by Laura Starita

22-24 April 2009, Washington DC, USA

More than 500 attendees from philanthropy, government and private enterprise gathered at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington DC from 22 to 24 April for the annual conference of the Global Philanthropy Forum. The organization’s mission of creating an investor community dedicated to international causes drove the five- track focus on poverty alleviation, climate change, health care, education, and post-conflict reconstruction, overlaid by the theme of cross-sector collaboration.

Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton headlined the first day’s agenda, warming the stage for a procession of royals (the Aga Khan spoke later that evening) and government officials touting the benefits of private sector cooperation.  Matching the government presence on stage were thought leaders from the non-profit and corporate sectors, including representatives from the Gates, Rockefeller and Hewlett Foundations (Gates and Rockefeller are among the event sponsors) and from sector-specific charities such as Partners in Health, Teach for America and KIPP, Acumen Fund and ACCION International.

It was taken as given that public-private cooperation is a desirable goal, preferable to any player going it alone. Indeed, there was a tendency towards axiom – investing in women delivers high returns; microfinance relieves poverty – and little grappling with more nuanced issues, such as what to do when government employees do not do their jobs, or when philanthropy props up dysfunctional public systems. Unchallenged as well was the view that private funds be used to innovate and test new ideas that, once proven, should be brought to scale via government infrastructure.

Regardless, the session content may have been mostly irrelevant – attendees seemed far more interested in each other than the ‘experts’. The lobby never fully emptied during sessions, and each break snapped with the exchange of business cards. The goal of the meetings, says president Jane Wales, is to create ‘learning communities’ to complement the ‘perpetual matchmaking’ she does to connect members with like interests. By that measure, the event seems a success: 83 per cent of conference respondents report that they call on fellow attendees when developing giving strategies.

Laura Starita is the managing editor of Philanthropy Action, an online journal for high-net-worth donors. Email laura.starita@philanthropyaction.com