Clear all

35,900 results found

reorder grid_view
Featured

Philanthropy in a changing climate: challenges and perspectives for a just transition

April 7, 2025

Across the globe, societies are confronting climate disruption and its serious consequences for both the planet and its populations. These challenges are at the core of a new study conducted by the Philanthropy & Society Observatory of the Fondation de France, in collaboration with Anne Monier, a researcher at the ESSEC Philanthropy Chair.Link to French version: https://www.fondationdefrance.org/fr/philanthropie-et-societe/la-philanthropie-face-aux-defis-environnementaux-quels-enjeux-et-perspectives-pour-une-transition-juste

“To Decide Without Knowing Me”: The Rise of Elton Mayo and Human Resource Management

October 24, 2025

From the late 1920s, the Harvard Business School established a theory of industrial relations which became dominant within human resource management (HRM), just as it was being taken up by government, universities, and large corporations in the United States. A series of industrial experiments at the Hawthorne Western Electric plant in Illinois provided the authoritative, scientific data for this theorisation. The man overseeing both the research and the theory was an Australian intellectual, Elton Mayo, who from 1923 received financial support from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial and from John D. Rockefeller, Jr., enabling him to stay in the United States. This article draws on archived correspondence showing this support was contingent on scientific credentials claimed by Mayo for himself and his research – credentials that were, to a significant extent, fraudulent. Mayo's story casts new light on the intellectual bases of HRM and the historic role of American social science and social science philanthropy in institutionalising a globally influential approach to industrial relations.

Philanthropy Brief: Direct Air Capture (DAC)

October 22, 2025

Direct Air Capture (DAC) filters carbon dioxide directly from ambient air and stores it permanently underground. It is an emerging technology with high costs but also long-term potential for durable removals.This factsheet offers funders an overview of opportunities, risks, and entry points.

The Rockefeller Foundation, the State, and Rural Health in 1930s Colombia

October 16, 2025

This report explores two public health initiatives in Colombia that emerged within the context of hookworm eradication efforts and were later expanded and transformed by local health professionals in collaboration with the Rockefeller Foundation (RF). The first was the publication and circulation of Salud y Sanidad, a public health magazine, while the second focused on the establishment of coordinated health services, including sanitary units and rural health commissions. Drawing on archival records from the Rockefeller Archive Center and Colombian sources, the report traces these initiatives to broader Rockefeller Foundation-sponsored projects related to soil sanitation, latrine construction, rural health campaigns, and the training of sanitary inspectors. These efforts were integral to the Foundation's broader mission of rural health modernization and the establishment of public health frameworks in Colombia. By examining reports and correspondence, the study highlights the crucial role of RF resources, technical expertise, and institutional support in advancing rural health, which became a central element of the Liberal Party's agenda in the 1930s. The alignment of the Rockefeller Foundation's goals with the efforts of Colombian social reformers in the National Department of Hygiene (DNH) helped elevate rural health as a national priority at this time.

Fertile Ground : A mapping and analysis of the vibrant ecosystem of organisations across Europe working to transform our economic system

October 9, 2025

Commissioned by Partners for a New Economy (P4NE) as a follow-on to Demos Helsinki's Turning the Tide (2022), this study set out with the objectives to:Conduct an updated mapping of organisations within Europe working on the shared objective of economic systems changeIdentify and synthesise shared challenges, needs, and structural gaps across the ecosystemDevelop a practical typology framework to support navigation and understanding of the fieldSurface key trends, shifts, and emergent dynamics over the past 5 yearsIdentify where points of cohesion, traction, and progress can be further supportedOffer recommendations to funders and the field itself on how to strengthen the field and support its objectives

Fading Beauty: How the One Big Beautiful Bill Could Widen Wealth Inequality

October 9, 2025

On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed the "One Big Beautiful Bill" (OBBB), a sweeping law that extends tax cuts favoring the wealthy, scales back the social safety net, boosts border and defense spending, and adds an estimated $3.4 trillion to the federal deficit. This new report, produced through our Racial Wealth Equity Resource Center with generous support from the Barr Foundation, examines how OBBB's changes to the tax code, Medicaid, SNAP, and student aid could erode families' ability to save, invest, and build long-term stability. These provisions risk deepening not only income inequality today but also racial and generational wealth divides for years to come.

Cattle welfare in Pakistan: Dr. Musadiq Idris in conversation with Prof. Clive Phillips

October 2, 2025

Clive Phillips was Australia's first Professor of Animal Welfare, at the University of Queensland, and has written widely on the welfare of farm, zoo and companion animals. In early-mid 2020s, he conducted a series of recorded dialogues (Conversations With Clive) with senior animal welfare scientists and academic experts, including Dr. Musadiq Idris at The Islamia University of Bahawalpur in Pakistan. They share with Clive Phillips their thoughts and experience of farm animal welfare issues, including those in developing economies. Relevant academic publications and references are included at the end of the recording.Key topics of the 22-minute conversation from 2025: 1) Geography and traditional agriculture in the Cholistan Desert. 2) Nomadic and transhumant grazing systems. 3) Key livestock species: sheep, goats, camels, and cattle. 4) Impact of extreme heat and water scarcity on animal welfare. 5) Heat stress and limited access to shade and water. 6) Seasonal migration of herders and their animals. 7) Role of livestock in the regional economy. 8) Slaughter practices around the Eid-ul-Adha festival. 9) Transport conditions and related welfare risks. 10) Climate change impacts on livestock and agriculture. 11) Shift toward intensive dairy farming systems. 12) Welfare challenges for imported dairy breeds. 13) Use of local versus exotic breeds for heat resilience. 14) Low consumer awareness of animal welfare in Pakistan. 15) Socioeconomic conditions of nomadic herders. 16) Government and NGO initiatives (mobile vet services, water infrastructure). 17) Mitigation strategies for heat stress in animals. 18) Importance of public education and legal enforcement to support welfare.

Women and Mexico’s Green Revolution: State, Agronomic, and Popular Gender Imaginaries

October 1, 2025

This paper explores how Rockefeller Foundation-funded maize and sugarcane improvement programs reified the gender imaginaries of the Mexican state during the Green Revolution. Namely, this paper is concerned with the way the Mexican state perceived women's roles and how agronomists contributed to these views. In seeking to "modernize" rural Mexico, the Mexican state pushed forth gender scripts that ultimately erased the social and economic contributions of women to the Green Revolution. In abetting this vision, agronomic improvement programs added to a cultural hegemony that alienated Mexican women from the products of their labor, including agricultural goods. I peel back this trajectory by drawing from secondary literature on the Mexican state's gender imaginaries, Rockefeller Foundation records, cultural products, and oral history.

2024 Partners Survey: Key Findings and Recommendations

September 30, 2025

The 2024 Pledge for Change Partners' survey is the first southern-led downward accountability process that seeks to promote a mutual commitment to building a stronger aid ecosystem by shifting accountability downwards and addressing power imbalances in the sector.The survey gathered feedback from 342 partners across 61 countries on the progress made by Women for Women, Cordaid, CARE International, Christian Aid and Oxfam International in meeting the three pledges: equitable partnership, authentic storytelling and influencing wider change. 79% of the partners were NGOs and CBOs operating at the national, regional, country and district levels.Through surveys and focus group discussions, partners shared their level of satisfaction with the degree to which the five signatories have demonstrated results from the showcase, reflecting a generally positive sentiment towards the signatories' equitable partnership. Using the Net Promoter Score analytical process, partners provided insights into their level of satisfaction, categorised as highly satisfied (promoters), satisfied (passives), or not satisfied (detractors).

Forging a Post-Imperial Rural Subject: Strategies of Rural Regeneration in Post-Habsburg Countries between Local State Building and Transnational Philanthropy

September 26, 2025

In the aftermath of the First World War, several empires in the Eurasian borderlands collapsed, including the Habsburg Empire. In its successor states, various actors pursued what this paper calls "strategies of rural regeneration," aiming to transform not merely the countryside but also the bodies and minds of its inhabitants. Indeed, the primary objective of these biopolitical initiatives, as this paper demonstrates, was to create a new, post-imperial rural subject. Although competing visions of this subject reflected divergent political agendas, they uniformly promised that this transformed individual would shed the undesirable legacies of the Habsburg imperial past. These imperial legacies were thus conceptualized as embodied and medicalized, inviting intervention from interdisciplinary networks of experts, including public health specialists influenced by eugenics, engineers, and sociologists. While these efforts were integral to the local state building in the rural areas, they were significantly enabled by and negotiated with transnational philanthropic initiatives. To substantiate this argument, the paper compares four such biopolitical projects in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia. By adopting and adapting specialized rural health demonstration areas, promoted and co-funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, these projects aimed to shape post-imperial subjects in rural settings in several distinct ways. By examining and comparing these divergent biopolitical strategies of rural regeneration, this paper sheds new light on the complex interplay between transnational philanthropy and local state-building actors in shaping the post-imperial world.

Why Multistakeholder Partnerships Matter for Inclusive Development: Lessons from Africa, Asia, and Latin America

September 17, 2025

Today's biggest challenges—like inequality, climate change, and health crises—are deeply connected and too complex for any one actor to solve alone. Multistakeholder partnerships (MSPs) bring sectors together to tackle root causes and share financial and non-financial resources for lasting change. In addition to being critical vehicles for collaboration, MSPs, if done right, center communities' agency and ensure the equitable involvement of local actors. Philanthropy can go further, faster, by joining forces with others. WINGS believes collaboration and cross-sector partnerships are key to tackling today's challenges. As the Philanthropy Transformation Initiative urges us, we must shift our mindsets to enable change, align behind our values, and act with the future in mind. Through the #LiftUpPhilanthropy Fund, WINGS, the global network of actors who grow, strengthen and transform philanthropy, collaborated with Africa Venture Philanthropy Association, Latimpacto and Sattva Consulting on three regional studies to illustrate the state of these multi- stakeholder partnerships in Africa, South and South East Asia, and Latin America. The studies identify common recommendations to create enabling ecosystems and provide philanthropy and policy makers with tools and resources to build and scale partnerships.

Guidance for Philanthropy: Powering Transformative Multistakeholder Partnerships

September 17, 2025

Philanthropy has a vital role to play in solving the world's most pressing challenges—by enabling collaborative partnerships that reach across sectors and borders. Philanthropy brings flexible, risk-tolerant funding, convenes diverse partners, opens access to influential networks, and elevates local and community leadership. Through multistakeholder partnerships (MSPs), philanthropy can spark innovation, build trust, and unlock long-term, systemic change. Based on findings from regional research by WINGS and its partners in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, this brief recommends nine ways philanthropy can help MSPs thrive.