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Since the late 1980s humanitarianism – the immediate relief of suffering in the name of respect for human dignity – has come to dominate western responses to distant suffering. Whether it is a sudden disaster or a long-running crisis, we look to NGOs like the Red Cross, Doctors without Borders, CARE, and Save the Children to help. Based on interviews with managers in the headquarters of the largest Western relief NGOs, The Good Project describes the organizational routines and practical constraints that determine who gets aid and who does not. The book argues that humanitarian NGOs have come to inhabit a shared social space, the field of humanitarian relief NGOs. This field produces both the assumptions that are common across agencies and the debates agencies have with each other about what it means to be a humanitarian. Agencies share practices of project-management that are geared towards one primary output, the “project.” They produce projects for a quasi-market, in which donors are consumers. The pursuit of the good project develops a dynamic that is relatively independent of the values of humanitarian relief and relatively independent of the needs of the populations on the ground. This dynamic is also relatively independent of the interests of donors, including donor governments. In addition to the benefits for those in need emphasized by liberal observers and the forms of direct domination highlighted by critics, humanitarian relief also produces a form of indirect domination mediated by the market for projects.

This book provides an integrated and multi-disciplinary examination of the growing role and legitimacy of philanthropy in democratic societies. Contributors probe the relationship between philanthropy and democracy from an empirical approach – what role has philanthropy actually played? – and from a normative approach – what role should philanthropy play? Divided into three sections on historical origins, institutional forms, and moral grounds and limits, the book bridges normative and empirical perspectives. The authors move philanthropy from the margins to the center of scholarly inquiry, providing a fresh look at philanthropy as a hybrid and ever-changing form of public and private power. Doing so permits an understanding of the evolution between public and private, identifying the public dimensions of private wealth and power, and recognizing when private action supports or, alternatively, threatens the public interest. Collectively, the essays open up powerful analytical vistas or conceptual possibilities for understanding shifts in the pursuit of the public interest and under what circumstances private action and the public interest are aligned. Authors are at once appreciative and critical in outlook, motivated by the idea that the broadest understanding of democratic life requires an engagement with the historical development, institutional embodiments, and moral grounds and limits of philanthropy.

The Great Recession not only shook Americans’ faith in the economy but also prompted a “citizen’s critique” of our economic institutions. The Politics of Value provides a vivid account of three movements that emerged in the wake of the 2008 crisis, each raising profound questions about what matters for the health of our economy. Based on in-depth interviews and observations, The Politics of Value shows how movement activists contest prevailing wisdom about how to measure economic success--and offer their own alternatives. It tells the story of the individuals who created benefit corporations (a new corporate form that requires social responsibility), showing how the new legal form and certification procedures they create challenge the notion that share price is the best measure of business success. It describes the growth of the Slow Money movement that fosters peer-to-peer place-based investment and invents new ways of measuring the significance of dense interconnections and backward and forward linkages in local economies. It tells the story of 2011, when many state legislatures effectively ended collective bargaining rights for public sector workers, and protest movements arose to assert the economic value of public investments and services against the prevalent view that they are a drain on the economy. While providing compelling and intimate accounts of each movement in its own right, The Politics of Value also presents a new framework for thinking about economic value, one grounded in thoughtful evaluation of the social division of labor and the relationship between state, market, and civil society.

The philanthropic landscape is changing dramatically as a new generation of wealthy donors seeks to leave its mark on the public sphere. This book reveals why these donors could benefit from having a comprehensive plan to guide their giving, and provides the framework to understand and develop this kind of philanthropic strategy. After listening for years to scores of individual and institutional funders discuss the challenges of giving wisely, the book argues here that contemporary philanthropy requires a thorough rethinking of its underlying logic. Philanthropy should be seen, the book contends, as both a powerful way to meet public needs and a meaningful way to express private beliefs and commitments. The book demonstrates that finding a way to simultaneously fulfill both of these functions is crucial to the survival of philanthropy and its potential to support pluralism in society. And it goes on to identify the five essential elements donors must consider when developing a philanthropic strategy: the vehicle through which giving will flow, the way impact will be achieved, the level of engagement and profile sought, the time frame for giving, and the underlying purpose of the gift. The book's point is that donors must understand strategic giving as the integration of these five critical dimensions to giving. The book provides a new basis for understanding philanthropic effectiveness and a new way for philanthropy to achieve legitimacy.