A key program area of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in the United States has been entrepreneurship through both grantmaking and operating programs directly. Ewing Kauffman dedicated his foundation in part to entrepreneurship as a core mission area well before his death in 1993. Mr Kauffman was an early — and perhaps the first — person to overtly connect his wealth creation to his entrepreneurial roots and then to dedicate his foundation to advancing that experience for others. He saw in entrepreneurship his own economic mobility and rise. More importantly, he saw its power to raise others, including as a means to financial stability or even wealth, meaningful jobs, advances in human welfare, improved standards of living, more unified communities and emboldened personal dignity.
In other words, in dedicating a substantial part of his philanthropic vision and resources to entrepreneurship, Mr Kauffman saw the means for helping meet basic needs and for advancing opportunity, hope, and achievement for individuals and communities — that is, social justice.
By engaging more deeply with entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship, philanthropy can advance social justice, especially its conceptions that strive to address the conditions of marginalised and poor communities and those who live in them.
There is no doubt that there are entrepreneurs amongst them, people whose talents and ambitions long for respect and an opportunity to thrive. Through such opportunities, it is more likely that they will be able to better provide for themselves and their families, create opportunities for others to do the same, and even help advance standards of living and quality of life through the goods and services they provide.
In addition to entrepreneurs being from these communities, there are other outsiders who want to meaningfully dedicate their experiences to operating in and thereby serving those communities and their residents in the same ways. Both sources of entrepreneurship strive to recognise the dignity of the person, including by helping meet material and intangible needs such as talent development and personal fulfillment. These entrepreneurs can benefit from research that philanthropy can conduct and support along with policy changes that can enable their efforts. They can benefit from the knowledge they gain from foundation-provided or supported programs. They can benefit from other resources that foundations provide directly and/or support indirectly, especially if they are in a charitable class.
A more expansive awareness that philanthropy can engage entrepreneurs and their experiences and environments is critical as they consider missions, strategies, tactics and allocation of their var
Written by John E Tyler III
This excerpt is from the book A New Era of Giving: Reflections on Philanthropy for Social Justice by ISDM Centre for Philanthropy for Inclusive Development. This book is a pioneering collection of essays on redefining the scope of philanthropy. It covers a wide range of topics, including the role of philanthropy in advancing social justice, the importance of ethics and embracing risk, the emergence of new philanthropic models and the importance of centering affected communities in all philanthropic efforts.
You can download the e-book and read the whole article by clicking here.
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