Abstract

Philanthropy is increasingly being called upon to help solve some of the most serious social, economic and environmental issues of our times. To achieve impacts of this magnitude, many have argued that philanthropy needs to ‘up its game’ (Dean, 2013), that it should be renewed, even revolutionized (Cohen, 2014a). Combined with innovations from within philanthropy itself, such conjectures have led to a reimagining, recasting and rebranding of philanthropy, both as professional practice and as a field of academic research. Expectations of donors and volunteers, ideas about impact and ‘social investment’, new philanthropic tools and technologies, the nature and strategies of major philanthropic institutions, and philanthropy’s relationships with the state and the market are all rapidly evolving. To differentiate these developments from a long tradition of philanthropic fashions and foibles, recent years have seen the emergence and use of various qualifiers: strategic, venture, entrepreneurial, catalytic, high impact, social change, and, simply, ‘new’ philanthropy.