So, after needlessly offending Britain’s philanthropists by calling them tax dodgers, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has sensibly abandoned his plans to limit the tax deductibility of their giving. This U-turn is embarrassing for the government, certainly, but not as harmful as it would have been to its efforts to promote a Big […]
If you need proof that philanthrocapitalism matters more than ever, look no further than the large number of books touching on effective giving and social change that have been published this year. Excluding our own contribution, The Road From Ruin (published in paperback this year in both Britain and America), here in no particular order […]
Can and should companies be in the business of doing good? This long-running debate was graced earlier this year by a new contribution from Michael Porter, one of the world’s leading management gurus, and his sometime sidekick, philanthropy consultant Mark Kramer. In a headline article in the Harvard Business Review they both took a swipe at […]
It is known in the lobbying trade as ‘astroturfing’ – super-rich donors bankrolling supposedly grass-root movements that are, in fact, just an artificial creation designed to lever political influence out of their cash. In recent weeks it is libertarian billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch (rhymes with poke) who have been in the the firing line […]