Centre on philanthropy

This third edition of the OECD’s flagship report Private Philanthropy for Development presents new data and updated analysis on philanthropic funding to low- and middle-income countries, offering a more comprehensive picture of philanthropy’s role in advancing sustainable development. It situates philanthropy within the broader development co-operation landscape and examines how its contributions interact with, and complement, official development assistance (ODA). The report analyses philanthropic flows by geography, sector, and thematic area, explores how these flows are implemented, and compares their scope and patterns with official development assistance. In doing so, it highlights philanthropy’s distinctive features, priorities, and modes of engagement, while assessing how philanthropic actors position themselves as strategic partners to beneficiaries, and other development finance providers. As the development finance architecture undergoes significant transformation, this comprehensive analysis offers an essential foundation for strengthening understanding, dialogue, and co-ordination across public, private, and philanthropic actors, and for identifying opportunities to better leverage complementarities beyond Agenda 2030.

Increasingly, philanthropic donors are moving from supporting specific projects to providing untied general support to their grantees. In response to the shift, this report sheds light on flexible financing – the practice of providing grantees unearmarked funding. It examines “trust-based philanthropy” to better understand both advocacy for, and scepticism towards, this approach. In so doing, it highlights the need for an empirical understanding of financing practices in philanthropy. The report focuses on one form of flexible financing: core budget support. It assesses the advantages and disadvantages of this approach for both philanthropic funders and grantees. To that end, it explores both the dynamics of grant-making as a contract and the implications of flexible funding on different types of grantees. Research is based on evidence from the OECD database on Private Philanthropy for Development. It looks at flexible funding from more than 180 private philanthropic donors from 32 countries, and historical yearly giving from 20 large foundations. Based on these data, it analyses the factors that influence philanthropic financing, using Bayesian statistics.

Social and emotional skills are capabilities, behaviours and competencies that allow individuals to adapt to their social environments. Extensive research shows that these skills are correlated with educational achievement and life outcomes, such as job satisfaction and income. What role does social and emotional learning (SEL) have in education, and how are foundations investing in understanding and improving these skills? This report describes the results of a global survey, carried out by the OECD Centre on Philanthropy, on philanthropy-funded initiatives that aim to develop or measure social and emotional skills and to improve educational outcomes.

This study evaluates the scope and dimension of large-scale philanthropy in the People’s Republic of China (hereafter “China”) over 2016-19. More specifically, it compares the financing provided by large cross-border philanthropic organisations with contributions from large philanthropic organisations operating domestically. The domestic philanthropic sector has experienced a significant expansion in recent years: rapid economic growth in China and the increasing concentration of private wealth allowed the Chinese private sector and high net-worth individuals to expand their support to social organisations.

Nigeria is one of the largest recipients of international philanthropic funding, but little is known about its domestic philanthropy, receiving approximately USD 192 million per year from large international foundations between 2013-18. However, these estimates do not consider funding from domestic foundations, as information on local philanthropy is limited. The report offers a first insight into a selection of domestic foundations in Nigeria. It contrasts these findings with other sources of development finance, including international philanthropy and official development assistance (ODA) targeting the country. However, only 12 of 56 foundations invited to participate responded to the survey. The low response rate and resulting small sample do not allow for generalisations about the domestic philanthropic sector in the country. Funding from 12 domestic philanthropic organisations in Nigeria amounted to USD 89 million over 2013-18. Three foundations provided the bulk of these funds (70%): MTN Nigeria Foundation, Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND) and TY Danjuma Foundation. Most domestic giving was allocated to health and reproductive health (USD 28 million), government and civil society (USD 25 million) and education (USD 22 million). Within the health sector, the most supported areas were basic health care, reproductive care, and prevention of noncommunicable diseases. Funding towards government and civil society prioritised conflict resolution, human rights and support to women’s rights organisations.

Philanthropy, both domestic and international, and corporate social responsibility (CSR), are supporting gender equality in India. This study estimates funding towards gender equality from a sample of 183 philanthropic organisations, based on two observations. First, the introduction of the Companies Act of 2013, which mandated and regulated CSR, substantially increased resources for development projects in the country, including for gender equality. Second, India faces significant challenges on gender equality, and harmful practices curtailing women’s rights persist. These are highlighted by the SDG India Index (NITI Aayog, 2020) and the OECD Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI).

This second edition of Private Philanthropy for Development aims to meet the growing demand for open, reliable and comparable data on philanthropic giving. Compared to the first edition, it collected more data from large foundations and other organisations based in developing countries to have a more comprehensive understanding of cross-border financing and domestic giving.

The objective of this note is to provide information needed to explore points of synergies and facilitate collaboration amongst Swiss foundations and official development agencies supporting education. The note captures previously non-existent quantitative and qualitative data from Swiss foundations active in education in developing countries and developed countries. It provides insight into the educational purposes and geographies supported by Swiss philanthropy and digs deeper into Swiss foundations’ collaboration with other private or bi- and multi-lateral funders, foundations’ engagement in advocacy, and their approaches to learning. In order to complement these findings, the note sets out data on Swiss official development assistance (ODA) for education to identify common geographical and thematic priorities.