Lately, the Big Society has seemed in danger of early consignment to the dustbin of history. Though it is David Cameron’s big political idea, the Big Society did not excite the voters at last year’s general election and has wobbled alarmingly between unpopularity and ridicule in recent weeks, as the British prime minister’s plans for […]
Last year we made a set of predictions for 2010. Some were satisfyingly prescient – the surge in mega-giving we predicted for 2010 became a reality through the Buffett-Gates Giving Pledge (even if we were off the mark in betting on Steve Jobs rather than Larry Ellison to be the Gates business rival who would step up to major philanthropy). […]
“[T]he call to social action needs to speak to individuals’ motivations and account for the obstacles to giving; to fit with people’s lifestyles and interests.” That this is the big idea in the British Government’s new Green Paper on Giving that was launched in London on Wednesday, shows the influence of so-called behavioural economists like Richard Thaler […]
2010 has been a good year for books touching on philanthrocapitalism. In no particular order, here is our second batch of favourites (not including our own “The Road From Ruin“). We will select five more of the best, highlight our worst books of the year and remind you of some must-read classics in later posts. […]
Britain’s Coalition Government gave another hint today about its Big Society big idea that it hopes will win over the voters, with the launch of an £80 million ($130 million) match fund to get philanthropists to start giving to the arts. Though the fund is a good idea, the government is still tinkering at the edges and more major […]
Tuesday saw the first fruits of Prime Minister David Cameron’s big election idea, the Big Society, with the launch of a rather modest reprise of some of proposals in the Conservative Manifesto, glammed up with a conversation and photo-op with a group of Britain’s top social entrepreneurs. We are sympathetic to the Big Society because it points towards some of the fundamental changes […]
The Big Society was supposed to be the big idea that would sweep the leader of Britain’s Conservative party, David Cameron, into power in little more than a week’s time. Yet Cameron is struggling to sell the Big Society to the voters. The niggling problem he seems to be facing is that while the Big Society sounds OK, no one quite […]