Foundations have long played a central role in the development and sustenance of the social sector. Today, when federal budget cuts — and even a potential overhaul to the U.S. tax code — could put the work of nonprofit and educational institutions substantially at risk, many expect foundations to fill this widening funding gap.

How can foundations, which seek to resolve, or at least move the ball forward on some of the biggest challenges facing the world at a given moment, maximize their impact?

One answer: through strategic partnerships.

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In his recent book, Unequal Partners: American Foundations and Higher Education Development in Africa (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), Fabrice Jaumont, the education attaché for the Embassy of France to the United States, offers an important case study on one of the most ambitious foundation collaborations ever undertaken, the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa (PHEA). The brainchild of the presidents of five prestigious American foundations at the turn of the 21st century, the PHEA sought to support the “indispensable contribution of higher education to social and economic development” in Africa and accelerate the “processes of comprehensive modernization and strengthening of universities in selected countries.”

Spearheaded by the Ford Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Carnegie Corporation of New York (and later, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and The Kresge Foundation), the endeavor emerged amid a new global push for development in Africa. Through coordinated investment in higher education, the PHEA sought nothing less than to “unleash the talents of the continent for the well-being of its people and those beyond its borders.”

Over a decade, the Partnership injected nearly half a billion dollars into the sector.

Read the source article at medium.com

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