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to community may be the most
important source of societal resilience,
and that therefore the loss of
social capital may be a fundamental
one that can erode all else. If that is
so, rebuilding social capital should
be our priority. And that is where
the nonprofit sector and the philanthropic
sector have critical roles to
play. And, of course, political leadership
is key.
PND: What are the implications of
the global financial meltdown for
international philanthropy?
Should we expect to see
reductions in philanthropic
capital flows from the
developed world to developing
countries over the next
couple of years?
JW: You’re already seeing
an enormous reduction
in remittances, which is a
significant source of income for
many countries. And as foundation
endowments shrink, so will their
giving. But the impact of that will
be more gradual than the immediate
impact of frozen or declining
capital markets. That is because
foundations tend to calculate the
amount they give each year based
on a rolling average of asset values
over a three- to five-year period. The
idea is to ensure that when asset
values decline, as they do from time
to time, giving declines gradually
rather than precipitously. At the
same time, in September, when it
became apparent that the economy
was facing a deep and significant
recession, a number of foundations
became more forward-leaning and
decided to increase their payout
— rather than pay out 5 percent
of their assets, as required, they
decided to increase that percentage.
That said, as the recession
has deepened, many foundations
have begun to worry more about
protecting the corpus and conserving
their endowments for the future. So
I think we will see a decline, albeit a
relatively gradual decline, in philanthropic
giving, and I would expect to
see giving rebound, albeit gradually,
as the economy rebounds.
PND: The Global Philanthropy Forum
will hold its eighth annual conference
in Washington, DC, later this month.
The conference will focus on five
interlocking crises: poverty, at home
and abroad; climate change; access
to health care; education; and averting
state failure in the wake of conflicts.
That’s an ambitious agenda.
Why has the forum decided to consider
those five issues together, and
what are the benefits of doing so?
JW: We’ve selected those issues
because they are in the in-box of
not only the president of the United
States, but of leaders worldwide.
And in each instance, governments
cannot solve these problems alone.
Indeed, the public sector will need
to be able to tap all sources of
social innovation — be they from the
private, philanthropic, or civic sector.
They will need the agility and inventiveness
of each. You noted that the
five issues are interlocking, and that
is correct. You cannot solve the problem
of poverty, for example, without
addressing the need for access to
affordable health care for all and
without creating a level playing field
when it comes to providing quality
education. Each of these problems
is in essence a symptom of a
syndrome that causes societies to
crumble and states to fail. So they
need to be looked at as a whole,
and that’s what we’ve chosen to do.
PND: Increasingly, foundations,
corporations, and high-net-worth
individuals are applying a strategic
lens to their philanthropy. According
to one currently popular view, being
strategic in a philanthropic context
...rebuilding social capital should be our
priority. And that is where the nonprofit
sector and the philanthropic sector have
critical roles to play....
means having clarity about your
goals, having a strategy based on
sound evidence for achieving those
goals, building in feedback loops
that enable you to course-correct
as you work toward your goals, and
periodically evaluating the impact of
your efforts. Is that a viable framework
for philanthropic interventions
in developing countries?
JW: It is. In fact, as someone who
worked at Carnegie Corporation, the
Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the
W. Alton Jones Foundation, I would
say that that has been the approach
of most private foundations that
have worked internationally. But
what foundations must keep in
mind is that the process of evaluation
can be very expensive for the
grantee to bear. This means funders
need to, at a minimum, share the
burden of evaluation, if not underwrite
that expense altogether. At
Carnegie Corporation, for example,
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