Highest Rated Comments


AmbitiousShoe25 karma

Dear Paul and Ophelia, many social scientists have produced incisive analyses about the current state of global health and poverty and about its historical, political, and social determinants. However, many such works often sit on the shelves and have limited reach, readership, or impact. As educators and implementers yourselves, what do you think we can do to improve social justice education? How can we make better use of scholarly contributions in education systems and policy circles?

AmbitiousShoe21 karma

Happy birthday, Tom White! In the spirit of honoring Mr. White's legacy and extraordinary compassion, I was curious about your thoughts, Ophelia and Paul, on the state of philanthropy today.

Anand Giridharadas' recent book, Winners Take All, has exposed the often unsettling (and uncomfortable) reality that some of the forces that generate wealth and power for a handful of donors are the same ones that deprive millions more and maintain systems of social inequality. Philanthropy, he argues, can often serve to obscure the roles of the privileged in causing the problems they later seek to solve. (Others, like Darren Walker, have voiced similar concerns and pushed for new paradigms of "justice-based philanthropy.") How does PIH consider such concerns when honing its strategies for fundraising? How do you personally make sense of these issues when speaking with supporters and mustering new resources for this work?