Philanthropisms

Send us Fan Mail On this episode we talk to Jen Ford Reedy, President of the Bush Foundation, about her new book "Please Be Good At Philanthropy" and why it is important for grantmakers to turn good intentions into clear strategy. Including: Who is the title of the book aimed at? I.e. Who needs to be “good at philanthropy”? What does it mean to be good at philanthropy? Are our current na...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we hear from Isaac Jones, Director of the UK charity First Give, about their work in schools helping children and young people to become 'philanthropic citizens'. Including: What does First Give do, and how did the organisation come about? What does the program look like for a participant? Is the primary aim to get schoolkids to be more philanthropic, to...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we talk to Emily Teitsworth, Executive Director of the Honnold Foundation (the nonprofit set up by world-famous climber Alex Honnold), about trust, risk and the foundation's work supporting community-led climate work and low-cost solar projects. Including: How did the Honnold Foundation come about, and what is the organisation’s core focus ? How and why was lo...

Send us Fan Mail On this episode we hear from Renata Minerbo, co-founder and Head of Philanthropy at Be The Earth Foundation, a family foundation focussed on the environment and social justice. Including: How did Be The Earth come about? How does Be The Earth implement a trust-based approach to grantmaking? How do you ensure that a trust-based approach doesn’t risk becoming exclusionary? (i.e. tha...

Send us Fan Mail On this episode we are joined by Dr Xanthe Scharff, Managing Director for External Affairs and Editor-at-Large at the Freedom Fund, to discuss their work combatting modern slavery and what it is like to receive not one but two major gifts from Mackenzie Scott. Including: What is Freedom Fund’s mission, and how does it go about delivering on this? What is the scale of modern slaver...

Send us Fan Mail In the thirteenth edition of our podcast partnership with the European Research Network on Philanthropy (ERNOP), we talk to more academics whose work is featured in the latest batch of short, practitioner-focused ERNOP Research Notes.  In this episode we hear from:  Lauren Dula (Binghamton University, State University of New York) & Laurie Paarlberg (Lilly Family School of Phi...

Send us Fan Mail On this episode we are joined by Craig Newmark - founder of Craigslist, philanthropist and recent Giving Pledge signatory - to discuss his thoughts on the importance of philanthropy and how he approaches it. Including: What was it that particularly made him decide to sign the Giving Pledge last year, given that he has been doing philanthropy at a significant level for a long time...

Send us Fan Mail In the third and final episode of our "Myths of Philanthropy" series, Rhodri and Chiara are joined by Zaineb Mohammed (Kataly Fund) and Devi Leiper O'Malley (Closer Than You Think) to discuss individualism and scarcity. Including: What does it mean to have a scarcity mindset, and why is it so common in the nonprofit sector? What does a scarcity mindset lead to? How...

Send us Fan Mail For the second episode in our "Myths of Philanthropy" series, we are joined by élysse marcellin (Whose Knowledge?) and Tesmeralna Atsbeha (philanthropic strategist & advisor, formerly Wellspring Philanthropic Fund) to discuss presumed knowledge. Including: Why do we equate wealth with expertise across a broad range of domains, and why is this a mistake?  Do we also m...

Send us Fan Mail In the first episode of our mini-series on "Myths of Philanthropy", Rhodri and Chiara are joined by Lisa Cowan (Director of The Haven Fund, previously Vice President of the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation) and Dimple Abichandani (author of A New Era of Philanthropy: Ten Practices to Transform Wealth Into a More Just and Sustainable Future )  to discuss the notion of leg...

Send us Fan Mail Rhodri is joined by Mandy van Deven and Chiara Cattaneo from Elemental, to introduce a new 3-part collaborative series on "Myths of Philanthropy".  Including: Why curate a series about the myths of philanthropy?  How did the series take shape?  Who are the contributors? What are the myths of philanthropy, and where did they come from? What do we hope readers and listener...

Send us Fan Mail In our 100th episode we talk to David Campbell (Binghamton University, State University of New York) and Lindsey McDougle (Rutgers University - Newark) about their work on "Experiential Philanthropy" (EP) and using giving as a teaching tool. Including: What is experiential philanthropy? What are some of the different models for delivering EP courses?  Is EP primarily a w...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we talk to Jonathan Heawood, Executive Director of the Public Interest News Foundation (PINF), about the role philanthropy can play in funding public interest journalism, and some of the opportunities and challenges this might bring. Including: How do we define public interest journalism? What are the key challenges for news providers in the modern digital landscap...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we talk to Ann Mei Chang, CEO of Candid, about the opportunities and challenges when it comes to collecting and publishing data on the nonprofit sector. Including: How does Candid decide what data to collect beyond what’s available from IRS filings? How can we ensure that data collection benefits nonprofits rather than burdening them?   How are nonprofits using Can...

Send us Fan Mail In the twelfth edition of our podcast partnership with the European Research Network on Philanthropy (ERNOP), we talk to more academics whose work is featured in the latest batch of short, practitioner-focused ERNOP Research Notes.  In this episode we hear from:  Peter Vandor (WU Wien), about his research (with Fabian Dober, Michael Meyer and Reinhard Millner) into how social inve...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we offer thoughts on the trends and topics that are going to shape philanthropy and civil society in 2026. Including: Philanthropy & Charities Ongoing political challenges for US philanthropy (more attacks on the legitimacy of foundations; will Trump weaponise the IRS?) More billion-dollar gifts; more donors signalling intent (e.g. by joining the Giving Pledge)...

Send us Fan Mail On this episode of the Philanthropisms podcast we speak to Philippa Charles OBE, Chief Executive of the DFN Foundation, about the role of foundations and what it means to be a good grantmaker. Including:  What is required to make core cost funding work from the funder’s point of view? What challenges do current grant application processes present for charities? How can we minimise...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we talk to Rachael Jarosh and Suzanne Ehlers, Chair and CEO respectively of USA for UNHCR, the US-based support organisation for the United Nations refugee agency, about their new women-led philanthropy project Building Better Futures. Including What is the aim of the Building Better Futures campaign and how did it come about? Why was it decided to focus on access...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we talk to Asha Curran, CEO of GivingTuesday, about the evolution of Giving Tuesday from its origins as a US-based giving day to its current incarnation as a global generosity movement operating in over 100 countries worldwide; and what she has learned about the power of everyday acts of giving. Including: How has GivingTuesday evolved since its inception over a de...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we talk to Sonal Sachdev Patel, CEO of GMSP Foundation, inaugural Philanthropist In Residence at the Marshall Institute at the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) and executive coach working with philanthropists and senior leaders. In a wide-ranging conversation, we discuss: How did the LSE Philanthropist in Residence role come about? What is t...

Send us Fan Mail In the eleventh edition of our podcast partnership with the European Research Network on Philanthropy (ERNOP), we talk to more academics whose work is featured in the latest batch of short, practitioner-focused ERNOP Research Notes.  In this episode we hear from:  Maria Jedicke (formerly of University of Freiburg), about her research on how to design effective volunteering appeals...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we talk to Oli French (freelance consultant) and Sally Vivyan (Co-Director of Gower Street and Grants Advisor/Trustee to the Sir Ernest Cassel Education Trust) about why and how foundations choose to spend themselves down. Including: Are decisions to spend down more commonly about mission, principles or practicalities? Or is it a mixture of all 3 (and how does the...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we consider the rise of political populism across the world, the impact this is having on philanthropy and civil society, and what the response might be. Including: What are the key features of populist politics? Has philanthropy played a role in creating the current populist moment? How are funders and NGOs in the US responding to populist attacks on their legitim...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we talk to Liv Egholm, Associate Professor at Copenhagen Business School, and Pia Gerber, Director of Freudenberg Stiftung, about philanthropy and democracy in Europe. Including: What is the core role of philanthropy within a democratic society, which differentiates it from either state or market provision?  Can philanthropy be used to strengthen democracy, or is i...

Send us Fan Mail On this episode of the Philanthropisms podcast we talk to Alisha Fernandez Miranda, author of Someone's Gotta Give (out 5th August), a comic novel about the struggles of an American former fundraiser to balance motherhood, life in the UK and a new job working as a philanthropy adviser. Including:  How did the book come about? How did the experience of working in philanthropy...