Follow the links below to read articles from wider sources that are recommended by Alliance

Money Well Spent by Lucy Bernholz

Volker Then’s review of Money Well Spent, Paul Brest and Hal Harvey’s new book on strategic philanthropy, will be published in the December issue of Alliance. In the meantime, Lucy Bernholz’s thought-provoking review is worth a read. ‘The book was written during a boom that seemed to have no end,’ she writes. ‘…Only hindsight will tell us if this transformative moment for markets and regulations is also a transformative moment for the business of giving.’

Click here to read the full review.

Financial meltdown or tipping point? by Ingrid Srinath, Secretary General of CIVICUS

Comments on recent developments in the financial markets are mostly totally constrained by the apparent lack of any alternatives to the current economic system. But should this paralyse our thinking? Not according to Ingrid Srinath, who asks: ‘Did you find yourself hoping against the odds that some thought might finally be given to the fundamental dysfunction and injustice of an economic system designed to privatise gains and socialise losses?’ Any funders out there ready to support some radical thinking?

Click here to read Ingrid’s comments.

Philanthropy, old and new by Rohini Nilekani

‘Just societies cannot be built merely by the wilful distribution of surplus wealth,’ writes Rohini Nilekani, one of India’s foremost ‘new’ philanthropists, in The Hindu in July.

To read her reflections on the limited role philanthropy can play in ‘achieving our planet’, go to http://www.hindu.com/2008/07/13/stories/2008071355111000.htm

Not many speak their mind to Gates Foundation by Sandi Doughton of the Seattle Times.

The power imbalance between funders and funded is a constant focus for Alliance (see especially the December 2006 special feature on ‘The shadow side of philanthropy’) and nowhere is it better illustrated than with the Gates Foundation. It seems that things may be changing at Gates, as Fay Twersky explains in her November 2007 interview for Alliance – but this article gives an interesting exposition of the obstacles faced.

To read it, go to
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008088717_gatescritics03m.html

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