What does the private giving landscape look like from within the arms of the state?

For the record, serving the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as a member of the US Foreign Service – launching global innovation programmes and serving as acting deputy director for the environment office in Nairobi, Kenya – was a privilege.

But, perhaps counterintuitively, my time in public service taught me more about private philanthropy than I could have imagined.

Even though I had previously worked in, studied, and published with philanthropic organisations, working within USAID left me with the sense that private philanthropy, in all its forms – individual, institutional, even corporate – does not recognise the full force of its power and promise.

That is something we need to resolve.

The following article explores this perspective and compares the strengths and weaknesses of public and private philanthropic machines.

An Active Voice

When it came to communication, USAID often moved very quickly.  

When I was asked, last-minute, to speak at a global event in Kenya, my communications colleagues cleared my remarks through six layers of approval with a single day’s notice. When the environment office in Nairobi helped orchestrate the 2023 Africa Climate Summit, our communications specialists were on the phone directly with the ambassador’s office in minutes. 

 Yet not everything USAID touched received such prompt attention. 

With more than 10,000 staff around the world and an annual budget exceeding US$50 billion, USAID tackled everything from economic development and renewable energy, to poverty, public health, and sustainable agriculture. Among the hundreds of weekly successes, only a fraction could receive the limelight they deserved, and when urgent humanitarian crises struck, many statements had to wait, especially if they had political or diplomatic implications. 

Private philanthropy can move differently.

In September 2025, only one week after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, nearly 200 philanthropies published a joint statement on free speech and political violence. When Donald Trump named George Soros and the Open Society Foundations as ‘likely candidate[s]’ for investigations into alleged funding of political violence, Open Society Foundations shared a press release in response the very same day. Only five weeks after Trump’s second inauguration, John Palfrey announced that the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation would raise its baseline payout to 6 percent or more for at least the next two years. 

Read the full article about insights from USAID for philanthropy by Yoon-Chan Kim at Alliance Magazine.