-
Views
-
Cite
Cite
Niamh McCrea, New Frontiers of Philanthropy: A Guide to the Tools and Actors Reshaping Global Philanthropy and Social Investing, Community Development Journal, Volume 51, Issue 4, 4 October 2016, Pages 585–588, https://doi.org/10.1093/cdj/bsw030
- Share Icon Share
Extract
Questions regarding how community development is resourced, and with what effects, are perennial concerns within the field. The economic, political and cultural changes brought about by neoliberalism have added new dimensions to these debates as community development grapples with a reconfigured state and with the managerialization of practice. Highly relevant to such concerns is the remarkable expansion of philanthropy over the last two decades. The dramatic increase in philanthropic giving partly reflects the upward distribution of wealth associated with the neoliberal era (Sayer, 2015) but philanthropy is also implicated in the widely noted shift from ‘government to governance’, as more non-state actors are catalysed into the business of delivering services and solving social problems (Ball, 2012).
Although it is not framed in such terms by the majority of its contributors, New Frontiers of Philanthropy, edited by Lester M. Salamon, is illustrative of such trends. The ‘new frontiers’ to which the title refers is ‘the massive explosion’ (p. 4) in new models of social finance. The volume‘s main purpose is to ‘provide a clear and accessible roadmap to the full range of new developments’ within this field so that their stated benefits can be maximized and their ‘limitations and challenges’ (p. 10) acknowledged. Among the features which distinguish the ‘new frontiers’ from traditional philanthropy, Salamon argues, are its emphasis on both social and financial returns, its capacity to leverage substantial funds within the private capital markets, and its focus on ‘self-sustaining systems that bring permanent solutions’ (p. 6). Though he does not view it as a panacea, or as a replacement for the state or private market, Salamon regards the emergence of these ‘new frontiers’ as an urgently needed development given the diminishing resources of both government and traditional philanthropy and given that ‘the problems of poverty, ill-health and environmental degradation [are] ballooning daily’ (p. 4).