Weekly Reader – June 17, 2019

What we’re reading and recommending this week. Your comments and suggestions are welcomed.

Creating New Pathways to Capital (Robin Brulé and Alvin Warren, SSIR) Inequity continues to plague the lending industry, but a microlending program in New Mexico has created a solution that is providing underserved communities the capital they need.

Four Questions DAF Holders Should Ask about Impact Investments (René Paradis, CEP Blog) No matter how you define it, impact investing is expanding rapidly. But the simplicity of the concept — essentially “doing well by doing good” — belies how tricky it can be in practice.

Can Philanthropic Money Listen? Some Observations from Atlanta (Thomasina Hiers, Nonprofit Quarterly) Money talks. But can it listen? That’s the question philanthropy needs to be asking when addressing the defining challenge in America’s socioeconomic landscape today: gaping inequality, especially in our great cities.

Philanthropy’s Power to Disrupt Tyranny – Starting with itself (Jeanné Lewis, NCRP Blog) Philanthropy needs to decide to follow the path of equity or the path of tyranny.

What the Private Sector Can Offer the Charity Sector and How Funders Can Help It to Do More (Matthew Mannix, NPC Blog) Corporate-charity partnerships are often associated with businesses handing over oversized cheques for underwhelming amounts and staff volunteering to ‘help’ charities but getting in the way.