The Defining Key Concepts in Development and Philanthropy Series

In 2018 Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace (PSJP) started to facilitate a learning space for a cohort of philanthropy and development practitioners who wanted to increase the effectiveness and impact of their work. They identified themes such as dignity, community resilience, measuring change, sustainability, community philanthropy, leadership, power, among others, that they wanted to unpack.

These terms are frequently used in development and philanthropy, and they are included in many organizations’ mission statements and performance indicators, but often there is no clear understanding of what they mean in practice or how they can be measured. Words like ‘sustainability’ and ‘dignity’ lack a solid theoretical base. They are polysemic concepts which means they have different meanings and have both descriptive and normative content. Furthermore, they are cluster concepts made up of many different components, none of which is either necessary or sufficient to define the term. These characteristics make these terms highly ambiguous and yet they are in abundant use in the sector – there is a problem at the heart of the language we use in philanthropy and development. For instance ‘sustainability’ in relation to development work can mean both staying in business and sustaining the work, and going out of business having achieved ‘sustainable’ change. Similarly, the term resilience can be used across two poles. In some contexts, it means weathering and supporting the transition to change, while in others it is used to protect the structural frames of the status quo and so to absolve the state and other actors of responsibility.

As a group, we wanted to develop our collective understanding of these concepts so that we could apply them more meaningfully to our work. Most importantly, we wanted to base our learning on lived experience rather than on academic concepts and abstract theories. In order to enable this learning, we began facilitating online dialogue spaces called the ‘learning circles’.

A key element of the learning circles was that they were based on the principles of ‘Bohm Dialogue’ where the emphasis is on listening and observation while suspending judgements, and on co-creating meaning together from our shared experiences.

The dialogues were supported by follow on papers and reflective blogs so that we were also developing narratives that reflected the diversity of this field, highlighted the positive deviance from the traditional ‘top-down’ ways of development practice, and that were consistent with an enlarged and nuanced understanding of just, compassionate, dignified, sustainable, community-based development. These emerging narratives are not to be seen as definitive. They are offered as part of a process to increase the understanding of practical issues in the field and to stimulate conversation about these concepts, to try to understand their meaning through the lens of practice and experience. Overall, in the process of the learning circles we sought to embody the spirit of the philosophy of Ubuntu ‘I am because you are’. Participants found these to be meaningful spaces in creating a sense of community, in unpacking complex concepts and applying them to their practice.

There are eight published papers from the Defining Key Concepts in Development and Philanthropy Series:

Dignity and Development
October 2018

This paper looks at the idea of ‘dignity’ in development. The 1948 Declaration of Human Rights enshrined dignity as the central goal of development, yet the term is not clearly defined, which makes it difficult to pursue and impossible to measure. Different people and organizations committed to the pursuit of dignity are likely to have different understandings of the term. The aim of this paper is to come up with a clearer definition of dignity and to begin to explore approaches to measuring it.

Drawing from online discussions with civil society practitioners, the paper traces the origins of the idea of dignity in development and then sets to unpack its implications in practice. It identifies two key frames for understanding dignity in development & philanthropy. 1) In our methods of work: how do we treat people? 2) In our goals and outcomes: does our work #ShiftThePower to communities or does it take power and agency away from them? Further sections discuss practices and behaviours that reduce dignity; ways in which we can ensure dignity in development practices; ideas on how to measure dignity; and what we can do to advance the dignity lens in development.

Dignity and Development, October 2018

Leadership and Development
March 2019 and February 2020

Although widely used and viewed as an important ingredient in successful philanthropy and development, there is no common understanding of what people mean by the term leadership or how its value is demonstrated in practice. As part of its work on to gain greater understanding of key concepts within development and philanthropy, and to make them concrete and practical for practitioners, PSJP sought to unpack the concept of leadership in development. Three methods were used to investigate the term ‘leadership’; the main one was facilitated learning circles on the topic for civil society practitioners from all over the world in May 2018 and again in July 2019, the second method was to examine results from a study conducted by one funder interested in fostering community leadership development as part of a strategy to meet people’s basic needs in low-income communities. The third method was to examine the literature on leadership.

The resulting two papers lay emphasis on transformative qualities of leadership and on understanding leadership as shared power.

Leadership and Development, March 2019
Leadership and Development 2.0, February 2020

Measuring Social Change
November 2019

Drawing from discussion with 14 civil society practitioners from all over the world including CBOs, NGOs, INGOs, international funders, philanthropy networks and support organizations, the paper examines the topic of ‘measuring change’. It speaks to a crisis at the heart of measurement in the sector. There is a mismatch between what happens on the ground in civil society development and what donors want. Donors tend to be obsessed with measurable targets – often of questionable importance – that fit simple linear models of measurement that trace inputs to outputs in a way that claims to embody a scientific approach to validating programme design. The civil society practitioners citied here, on the other hand, find themselves in complex situations where linear models are inappropriate. They seek a process-driven approach to measurement that aims to capture more nuanced ways of detecting outcomes.

Measuring Social Change, November 2019

Understanding Sustainability
December 2019

While ‘sustainability’ is everywhere in the language of development and philanthropy, it is used in many different ways that makes this apparently simple term complicated in practice. Terms such as ‘environmental sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’ suggest economic development without degradation or depletion of natural resources. ‘Social sustainability’ is about the wellbeing of people, their quality of life, and human rights. UNDP’s ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) have much wider application including all the elements of sustainability mentioned so far and much else. The 17 goals represent an entire framework ‘to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity’.

So, away from academic theory, the global framing of the UNDP and the goals of bilateral aid agencies, what does sustainability mean for the people and organizations that do the practical work on the ground? Drawing on online discussion with 14 participants from the fields of development and philanthropy about how the concept of sustainability shows up in their work, this paper describes what the practitioners’ are sustaining and how, criteria for success in building ‘sustainability’ and philanthropic practices that help to build sustainability.

Understanding Sustainability, December 2019

Building Resilience in International Development
January 2021

The events of 2020 (the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting economic turmoil, the ever-gathering climate catastrophe, and the global reverberations of calls against structural racism) drew attention to the concept of resilience. People were asking ‘how can we cope and survive?’ and ‘how can we make sure that we build back better from this crisis?’. This paper considers what resilience looks like in practice. It is based on the work of three organizations – Tewa, Global Greengrants Fund and Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. In June 2020, these organizations came together to online discussions with civil society practitioners from many parts of the world. Together, these projects provide insight into the factors such as local leadership that promote community and disaster resilience and identify measures to mitigate those factors that impede resilience. The paper emerged as a joint effort of all concerned. It focuses on what we can learn from the work on the ground to help civil society foster greater resilience in its work and institutions in the face of current and future crises.

Building Resilience in International Development, January 2021

Understanding Resilience in International Development
August 2022

This paper is a follow up on the paper Building Resilience in International Development, further exploring whether resilience is a useful concept in development. In the discourse of development and philanthropy, the term ‘resilience’ is used across the spectrum between two poles. In some contexts, resilience means weathering and supporting the transition to change, while in others it implies endurance and adaptation and is used to protect the status quo. The paper explores this paradox based on a dialogue between 14 practitioners from civil society and philanthropy organized in December 2021 with Eva Rehse (who was then with the Global Greengrants Fund) and Halima Mahomed, a research fellow at TrustAfrica, acted as provocateurs to bring out the tension between two poles of resilience and set up the conditions for participants to explore where they stand.

Understanding Resilience in International Development, August 2022

Towards the Beloved Community
May 2024

This paper in based on discussions that took place in the throes of COVID and focused on learning from each other about difficult issues including dying, trauma, bereavement, and healing. These topics touch us all, but we find few spaces to talk about them. As we deal with the intersecting problems of the legacy of COVID, growing polarization, and ever more war, we need a paradigm shift in how we provide help. This includes the way that a community responds to its members, and how can we foster the idea of compassion in development work. The paper highlights the work of three people who served as presenters for the online discussions: Afsan Bhadelia PhD, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, USA (As of August 2022: Department of Public Health, College of Health and Human Science, Purdue University, USA); Leah Odle-Benson, The Stephen Lewis Foundation, Canada; and Stephen Connor PhD, Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance (WHPCA), USA. This paper offers slightly amended forms of their presentations from the dialogues and draws on the ensuing discussion. It suggests that we need to put compassion towards the top of our agenda if we wish to alleviate individual and collective suffering. Underpinning the paper is the question, can we build the ‘beloved community’ as the ultimate expression of the systemic transformations we seek in the world today?

The research and work of the three provocateurs and the dialogue process with the participants provide an understanding of the inequities of wealth, race, geography, and gender (among others) that underpin suffering, and of the ways of addressing avoidable suffering. It examines the values (through the palliative care framework) that foster compassionate communities and begins to shine the light on some of the elements of compassionate action in development and philanthropy through the work of the Stephen Lewis Foundation and other participants in the virtual sessions.

Though some time has elapsed since these conversations took place, we believe that their content is as pertinent as ever. Given the polycrisis that we face today, the need for compassion has seldom been greater or more urgent. Our hope is that this paper will evoke more thoughtful reflection and sharing of practices that foster the idea of compassion in our work.

Towards The Beloved Community, May 2024