Philanthropy and Social Policy: Global Trends and Debates

‘Big philanthropy’ – private giving at large scale to improve public well-being – is now a significant social policy phenomenon across the globe. Long-existing institutions such as the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations have been joined by a new generation of philanthropists and philanthropic foundations, such as Gates and Bloomberg, IKEA and Omidyar, Slim and Lemann. All exert influence over social policy programmes and policy design. At the same time there is also emerging distinctive regional or domestic philanthropy, especially in the Global South.

What does this mean for social policy? How does philanthropy interact with and influence policy in different geographies and across different fields such as health, education, housing or agriculture? Is such philanthropy a generous addition of resources and expertise to the policy process? Or, by privileging the perspectives and ideas of a private few, does it offend principles of democracy and the state?

These are some of the questions explored in the new Handbook of Philanthropy and Social Policy.

Join us for an online discussion with contributors to this new volume:

• Dr Roosa Lambin (co-editor)
• Dr Arun Kumar (chapter: ‘philanthropy capture’ of social policy in India)
• Professor Rana Jawad (chapter: philanthropy in the Middle East and North African region)
• Dr Jeremey Youde (chapter: philanthropy and global social governance )
• Chaired by Professor Jonathan Roberts (co-editor)

Attendees will receive a 70% discount code for the handbook.

Praise for the Handbook

The Handbook is a significant and timely addition to the field of philanthropic studies. The editors offer both a much-needed conceptual framework and a coherent set of high-quality essays that examine philanthropy in different policy fields and from perspectives that assess its contributions and potential as well as shortcomings and critiques. It also stands out due to the impressive, and urgently required, coverage of philanthropy in the Global South.

This Handbook is a much needed and fascinating contribution on actors and patterns of global philanthropy as an element of transnational social policy. A must-read for any scholar seeking to understand social policy provision in the context of a global distribution of wealth, ideas and power.

This is a bold book, that doesn’t shy away from examining the critiques of philanthropy but engages with the critiques thoughtfully, rigorously, and in a nuanced manner. This book will become a key text for all those interested in understanding the role as well as the potential and challenges of philanthropy in the context of social policy.

Meet our speakers

Arun Kumar is a Senior Lecturer in Global Development and Management at King’s College London, United Kingdom. He researches and writes on elite philanthropy, poverty and inequality, and global development. His first book Philanthropy and the Development of Modern India (Oxford University Press, 2021) tracked the history of Indian elites’ philanthropy and its entanglements with the broader formulations of community, capital, modernity, and the national question over the course of the twentieth century.

Jeremy Youde is Dean of the College of Urban and Public Affairs at Portland State University. He previously held academic and administrative appointments at the University of Minnesota Duluth, Australian National University, Grinnell College, and San Diego State University. His research focuses primarily on global health governance and international responses to infectious disease outbreaks, and he is the author of five books and co-editor of three.

Jonathan Roberts is Professor (Education) in Civil Society and Public Policy at the Marshall Institute within the London School of Economics. He leads development of the Institute’s portfolio of teaching activities, including the executive MSc programme in Social Business and Entrepreneurship. He is a faculty member of LSE’s School of Public Policy, where he teaches philanthropy, social enterprise, and public policy. Research interests include philanthropic funding systems, social justice philanthropy, and hybrid institutional forms. He holds a PhD from LSE’s Department of Social Policy.

Rana Jawad is Professor of Global Social Policy at University of Birmingham and co-founder as well as the current convener of the MENA social policy network www .menasp .com. She has researched the politics and delivery of social policies in the MENA region for over two decades and is known internationally for her work in this area as well as for her research on the role of religion in social policy. She earned her PhD in Social Policy from the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom.

Roosa Lambin is Research Associate at the University of Oxford and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Open University, UK. She is a social policy scholar with expertise on philanthropic actors notably in the health sector, and social protection systems in the sub-Saharan African region. Dr Lambin frequently collaborates with the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) and contributes to projects commissioned by leading national and international organizations including the ILO, BMZ, and FCDO. She holds a DPhil in Social Policy from the University of Oxford.

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