Kathleen D. McCarthy

Women and philanthropy

Although women often played a central role in the creation of non-profit organisations through their donations of time, money and material possessions, their efforts have received little systematic attention from students of the non-profit sector, particularly outside the United States. This special issue ofVoluntas traces the ties between philanthropy and womens social, economic and political roles in Argentina, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, India and Australia. Written as part of an international collaborative study co-ordinated by the Center for the Study of Philanthropy at the Graduate School of the City University of New York, these essays test a variety of theoretical models for assessing the significance of philanthropic activities in empowering disadvantaged groups and fostering the growth of civil society.

Women, philanthropy, and civil society

Table of Contents - Introduction - Kathleen D. McCarthy 1. Women and Philanthropy in Nineteenth-Century Ireland - Maria Luddy 2. Women and Philanthropy in France - From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries - Evelyne Diebolt 3. Women and Philanthropy in Brazil - An Overview - Leilah Landim 4. The Norwegian Voluntary Sector and Civil Society in Transition - Women as a Catalyst of Deep-Seated Change - Per Selle 5. Women and Philanthropy in Colonial and Post-Colonial Australia - Shurlee Swain 6. Parallel Power Structures, Invisible Careers, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Womens Philanthropy - Susan M. Chambre [accent grave] 7. Women and Philanthropy in Egypt - Amani Kandil 8. An Islamic Activist in Interwar Egypt - Beth Baron 9. Women and Philanthropy in Palestinian and Egyptian Societies - The Contributions of Islamic Thought and the Strategy of National Survival - Ghada Hashem Talhami 10. Women and Philanthropy in India - Pushpa Sundar 11. Women and Philanthropy in South Korea from a Non-Western Perspective - Hye Kyung Lee Notes on Contributors

From government to grass-roots reform: the Ford Foundation's population programmes in South Asia, 1959–1981

This article traces the history of Fords involvement in population work in South Asia from the 1950s to the mid-1980s. The primary focus is on the transition from large-scale technical assistance programmes rooted in government and academe, to work with grass-roots womens groups and community-based non-governmental organisations (NGOs). In the process, the Foundation also moved from quantitative efforts designed primarily to distribute contraceptives, to a more holistic approach focusing on maternal and child health. The article concludes by relating these trends to a larger shift from a belief in the power of ‘disinterested expertise’ and university-based policymaking that marked the efforts of the major American foundations since the Progressive era, to a new emphasis on ‘self-interested expertise’ and grass-roots social activist and development NGOs that emerged in the 1970s. Changing development paradigms, political trends and a growing disillusionment with large-scale technical assistance all contributed to this transition.