Philanthropy is grappling with the role it must play in responding to what is called the polycrisis – climate and environmental crises, entrenched economic inequalities, and social injustices. The material role that philanthropy can play – the provision of resources, the creation of legislation, etc. – is obviously limited, but does it have a leadership role to play?

There are broadly three aspects to leadership in philanthropy: one is leadership within individual philanthropic organisations; the second is leadership within the sector; and the third – the most ambitious – is leadership in society, setting examples of creative responses to problems and patterning behaviour. For all these three, it is vital that philanthropic leaders are provided with space and support to reflect on the ways in which they can rise to these challenges.

Georg: In my article [in the March 2024 issue of Alliance], I make 3 suggestions as to how we bridge the gap between staying aligned with your purpose, and at the same time responding to new developments:

1 – Managing scarcity by being generous. Generally foundations are seen as very wealthy, but on the other hand usually this money is never enough to solve the problems they were created for. One of the paradoxes of grantmaking foundations; they are created out of affluence, but as soon as the money is in the foundation it is the subject of scarcity.

Foundations used to be quite restrictive. Today, the idea is more to say ‘why don’t we give the money as core funding to organisations so that they can develop their skills and attract other funds, or new knowledge?’ By this, you can move forward and support the organisations through more than just by being very restrictive.

2 – Increased transparency to reduce workload. If foundations are more open and transparent in the way they are collaborating with other organisations, they reduce workload on both sides. For grantseeking organisations it’s often very difficult to find the right foundation, and the more they can gain information in advance, the less work there is on both sides to find the right partners.

3 – Leadership is not about the leaders. Leadership in a foundation is not about leading your own organisation, because the impact that you want to create is outside of the area of influence of your foundation; you have to focus on other aspects and other needs of leadership, especially towards your core constituents.

Read the full article about leadership in philanthropy by Amy McGoldrick at Alliance Magazine.