by Sherine Jayawickrama
 
Steven Lawry’s five-part series on U.S. Philanthropy’s Shrinking Amibition has provided a lot of interesting food for thought.  His analysis and arguments have caused me to reflect on how this set of issues …

By Steven Lawry
In Part IV of this series I argued that large, conventional foundations, staffed by highly-qualified and increasingly specialized professional staff, are over-specifying the solutions to poverty in-house and, in the process, are increasing …

by Steven Lawry
I argued in Part II of this series that foundations as private organizations are freer than public funders to get behind new and untested ideas for reducing poverty that show promise. Foundations are …

Citizenship has often been viewed as a residual of something else: get markets right and citizens will participate, or get elections right and citizens will have a voice. This is a narrow view of citizenship.  …

By Steven Lawry
I am arguing in this four-part series that US foundations working internationally are not making full use of their freedom to support innovation and help people claim new rights—and that progress toward reducing …

Dambisa Moyo made a stop at the Harvard Kennedy School on Monday to talk about her book Dead Aid. The book is creating a lot of buzz. I now understand why. Moyo’s message is simple, …

by Steven Lawry
Independent US foundations working internationally have advantages that other kinds of donors, such as the World Bank and USAID, generally don’t. As private funders, foundations are better able to bear risk on behalf …

 
About a week ago, I was on a panel on “Bridging the Gap: Researchers and Practitioners in International Development” at the Social Enterprise Conference held at Harvard Business School.  It was a lively exchange that …

I am beginning to like this blogging thing.  I must confess that I had predicted that my first post would end up lost in a cyber black hole.  But no – quite the contrary!  To …