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1 month ago | 
thegivingreview.com | Michael E. Hartmann |William A. Schambra
The below article, republished with permission, originally appeared in HistPhil on March 18, 2025. ***Generally, Republican presidents at least since Richard Nixon have positively characterized civil society and its role in American life. Recall, for example, some of the old standbys: Ronald Reagan’s fondness for voluntarism and the voluntary sector, George H. W. Bush’s “thousand points of light,” and George W. Bush’s compassionate conservatism and faith-based initiative.
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Dec 6, 2024 | 
thegivingreview.com | William A. Schambra
The below op-ed, republished with permission, originally appeared in The Chronicle of Philanthropy on December 5, 2024. ***A little over three years ago, I opened an online presentation to the board of the Ford Foundation this way: “It’s an honor to be here this morning, despite the fact that you’re a cancer on American society.”Fortunately, I wasn’t seeking a grant.
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Dec 5, 2024 | 
philanthropy.com | William A. Schambra
A little over three years ago, I opened an online presentation to the board of the Ford Foundation this way: “It’s an honor to be here this morning, despite the fact that you’re a cancer on American society.”Fortunately, I wasn’t seeking a grant. Instead, I had been asked by Ford President Darren Walker to talk to his board about the newly emerging threat of populist conservatism to endowed institutions such as the one he led. He didn’t ask to review my comments in advance.
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Nov 14, 2024 | 
thegivingreview.com | William A. Schambra
In a recent Chronicle of Philanthropy op-ed, former Hewlett Foundation program officer Daniel Stid offers some sage counsel for progressive foundations seeking a path forward from the elections of 2024: don’t automatically revert to the uncompromising anti-Trumpism that characterized philanthropy’s response to his first administration. As Stid puts it, giving in to the impulse to “counter-mobilize and once again join the vanguard of the resistance to Trumpist populism” would be a mistake.
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Oct 28, 2024 | 
thegivingreview.com | Michael E. Hartmann |William A. Schambra
The below article originally appeared in Compact on October 11, 2024. ***In August, the San Francisco’s District Attorney’s office’s chief of staff sent a memo to the MacArthur Foundation that declared, “Our office will not be used as sharecroppers to a foundation’s vision of criminal justice reform.” As first reported by Joe Rivano Barros in Mission Local, the memo was written by Monifa Willis on behalf of District Attorney Brooke Jenkins.
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Oct 8, 2024 | 
thegivingreview.com | William A. Schambra
Googling “philanthropy + lived experience” produces an avalanche of results—no surprise, since “lived experience” is becoming such an important concept in the world of foundations and nonprofits. “Promoting Meaningful Partnerships with Lived Experience;” “Benefits of lived experience on nonprofit boards;” “Centering lived experience in a meaningful and impactful way;” “Letting Lived Experience Lead the Way;” the hits just keep on coming.
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Aug 27, 2024 | 
thegivingreview.com | William A. Schambra
“Our office will not be used as sharecroppers to a Foundation’s vision of criminal justice reform.” I confess my heart leapt when I read this courageous pronouncement from Monifa Willis, chief of staff to San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, as reported last week by Joe Rivano Barros in Mission Local. This gutsy display of grantee push-back came in the face of the MacArthur Foundation’s decision to withhold $625,000 in grant funds from the DA’s office.
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Jul 29, 2024 | 
thegivingreview.com | William A. Schambra
Part of The Giving Review’s “5 for 5” series, this article originally appeared on June 12, 2023. ***The April appearance of the now-famous six-party appeal for civility in The Chronicle of Philanthropy prompted a scene reminiscent of the Book of Daniel, Chapter 5. In the midst of a great feast thrown by Babylonian King Belshazzar, a hand suddenly appears in mid-air and writes “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin” on the palace wall.
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Jul 17, 2024 | 
thegivingreview.com | William A. Schambra
The Giving Review co-editor William A. Schambra participated in a panel session about “Alternative Political Structures” at the National Conservatism conference put on by The Edmund Burke Foundation in Washington, D.C., last week. The panel also included the pseudonymous N. S. Lyons, who writes on Substack at The Upheaval, South African filmmaker and writer Ernst Roets, and The Heritage Foundation’s Delano Squires.
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Jun 24, 2024 | 
thegivingreview.com | William A. Schambra
Every half-dozen years or so, Mark Kramer—co-founder and board chair of FSG, a major philanthropy consulting firm—comes out with a major new framework for pursuing “strategic philanthropy.” The latest version was announced in a cover story for the Summer 2024 Stanford Social Innovation Review entitled “Where Strategic Philanthropy Went Wrong.” A cynic might suggest that a more appropriate title would be “Where Strategic Philanthropy Went Wrong … By Listening to Us in the Past.” There’s...
