Reimagining Global Philanthropy

Applying lessons from the success of community banks, Kirk S. Bowman and Jon R. Wilcox develop and implement a new model that significantly raises philanthropic efficacy. Their straightforward and rigorously tested approach calls for community members to take the lead while outside partners play a supporting role.

Kirk S. Bowman is a professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is cofounder and director of the international NGO Rise Up & Care. His books include Lessons from Latin America: Innovations in Politics, Culture, and Development (2014).

Jon R. Wilcox is the cofounder and the former president, CEO, and director of California Republic Bancorp. His current and previous board affiliations include Mechanics Bank, Waterfall Bridge Capital, Rise Up & Care, South Coast Repertory, Junior Achievement, and Fiji Reef Resources.

Theresa Williamson, executive director, Catalytic Communities:
Reimagining Global Philanthropy provides the critical analysis we have needed for decades, but not had until now, explaining why global philanthropy so often fails, and why dropping the ego and instead identifying and supporting grassroots actors will always be the most impactful, empowering and cost-effective way to make change. If our goal is really a world where everyone is able to lead a healthy and fulfilling life, ensuring our collective well-being in ways that preserve diversity and that promote belonging and care for our communities and ecosystems, not only reimagining, but actually realizing, a decolonial approach to philanthropy is imperative. Everyone interested in making change should read this book.

Jon-Claude Zucconi, managing director, investment bank:
Bowman and Wilcox turn their expertise in international affairs and banking to reforming international philanthropy, giving important advice to those who want to help in the most efficient way. Anyone who wants to participate in making a difference for the better in the world would be wise to read this book.

Dan Breznitz, codirector of the Innovation Policy Lab and Munk Chair of Innovation Studies, University of Toronto:
This is an eye-opening and pathbreaking book offering concrete advice for those of us who want to do good in the developing world. Instead of yet another “new” twist on the usual humanitarian colonialism in which we of the West put ourselves in the driving seat of the civilized, educated know-it-alls that should plan for the poor primitives in the South how to become rich and developed like us, Reimagining Global Philanthropy offers a new model, where we are just the sidekick, playing the important but secondary role of allowing local activists and social entrepreneurs to scale-up successful programs they and their community built, tested, and preerected. Bowman and Wilcox put forward a bold new model and present it in a crisp engaging way. A must read.

Kentaro Toyama, W. K. Kellogg Professor of Community Information, University of Michigan, and author of Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology:
Bowman and Wilcox's core thesis is that philanthropists should avoid casting themselves as the heroes and instead serve as supportive sidekicks to effective neighborhood leaders. At once, they pinpoint the problem with so much global philanthropy and offer a meaningful solution.

Evelyne Huber, Morehead Alumni Professor of Political Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill:
This book offers a highly original take on global philanthropy and the high failure rate of many of its projects, accompanied by compelling advocacy for a new model that relies on local leadership and insists on cost-effectiveness. The authors build on evidence from failures big and small and on their own decades-long experience with both failures and successes. They present their lucid analyses in highly accessible language. I cannot remember having seen a serious book with an important policy message that is such a pleasure to read.

John DeCero, president and CEO, Mechanics Bank:
Reimagining Global Philanthropy takes a tried-and-true model—one based on the industry I work in every day—and brings the lessons of community banking to the global stage of international philanthropy. Now, more than ever, philanthropy must maximize returns on investment. A trailblazing book that provides a formula that really works.