Foundations and the State
From PhilanthropyWiki
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This presentation was made by Steven Burkeman to Philanthropy Australia members in Sydney and Melbourne in October 2002. Steven Burkeman worked for almost 20 years as the Trust Secretary to the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, a large UK foundation founded in 1904. He is now a consultant working with foundations and others interested in philanthropy. He is a member of the Board of the Community Fund, the UK’s National Lottery Charities Board. He spoke then, and writes here, in his personal capacity.
In this paper Mr Burkeman describes the reasons he believes that foundations exist in a democratic society amd explores the notion that "the time has come to make this implicit contract explicit: to cut through the contradictions and misunderstandings around the issue of the accountability of grant making foundations, and in so doing, to set them free – and while setting them free, make them properly accountable for that for which they should be accountable."