This paper analyzes the optimal division of labor between foundations and the public sector. Philanthropists enjoy more personal degrees of freedom than leverage over social systems, because public resources vastly exceed philanthropic resources. Given this dynamic, engaging the public sector is...

This paper develops a decision framework for environmental philanthropy in search of achieving sustainability on a crowded planet. Many of the world's most pressing global challenges are environmental in nature (or have stark environmental implications) and require long-term efforts. Asking what...

Leadership means influencing highly complex, interactive, interdependent and often intangible processes where individuals and groups build social realities. Effective leadership thus requires a range of orientations and capacities which are not often found together, and which cannot easily be...

This paper analyzes adjustment mechanisms for philanthropic organizations in a downturn. In the global philanthropic community, the current economic context and the difficulty to make sense of it have led donors to review their activities. In the 2008 recession, many foundation endowments have...

This paper provides a conceptual framework for a social agenda for commodity businesses, mapping the different action options. Providing basic and high-value commodities, the extractive industry fulfills a fundamental economic need. Operating in a wide variety of geographical and climatic...

This paper asks how foundation assets can be invested for greater social impact without sacrificing financial return objectives - for example, by investing in social enterprises. In organizing the socio-economic activity outside the public sector two options are generally available. At one end...

Many philanthropists seek to exercise leadership on issues they are passionate about. But their resources are limited when compared to the public sector and the magnitude of social needs. To create impact, philanthropists must respond effectively to the complexity of the problems they seek to...

This paper argues that social entrepreneurs have a role to play in turning the tide on global issues as exemplified by the Millennium Development Goals, where innovative entrepreneurship interventions are critical. The paper introduces the individualist and the contextualist schools of social...

This paper reviews the philanthropy landscape in Russia, analyzing strategies to obtain social impact. The article suggests to view grantee organizations as complex systems, whose behavior can follow one of the following patterns: goal-seeking, oscillation, overshoot and collapse, or low-level...