7th June 2024

The Philea Forum is an annual gathering of the philanthropy community. This year, it was held in Ghent and hosted by the King Baudouin Foundation, a major donor that supports a wide range of causes, including social justice and education in Belgium, Europe, and internationally.

There were around 780 attendees. I was fortunate to be among them, representing Tanya’s Dream Fund as their EU Strategy Advisor.

I’ve attended several previous editions whilst at Eurochild. It’s fascinating to see how the conversation has evolved over the years. In Vienna in 2021, there were already many critical voices questioning philanthropy’s legitimacy and transparency. At that time, I wrote a blog for the Alliance magazine.

This year, it seemed like foundations were falling over one another to demonstrate their credentials in ‘trust-based philanthropy’. The buzzwords were partnership, empowerment, even “unconditional love“.

As a long-term social justice and child rights advocate, I know that involving the people directly concerned is the only way to achieve lasting change. Philanthropy must create conditions for communities to shape their own solutions. And there’s a healthy trend towards more unrestricted funding for civil society partners, based on shared values and ‘learning conversations’.

These changes are all welcome and long overdue. So why did I come away feeling so skeptical? Perhaps because I see these conversations from the perspectives of both a grant-giver and running a civil society network. The donor’s strategy and desired impact still matter a lot. The supposed shift from ‘strategic philanthropy’ to ‘trust-based philanthropy’ seems like a false distinction.

An article by Phil Buchanan from the Center for Effective Philanthropy articulates it more clearly than I can. He said, ‘no single model or approach makes sense in every context’.

He also reminds us that ‘only government can alleviate poverty at scale’. Philanthropy needs to invest in civil society infrastructure organisations that can leverage collective power to influence policy. Even more so now given the recent EU elections!