Transformative philanthropy in practice

Urban Volunteers and the Power and Limits of the Gift

Bibliographic Data

ID3198586
AuthorsPascal Goeke (0000-0001-5209-0245, Freie Universität Berlin, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume22
Issue8
Pages1099-1121
Publication date2021-10-13
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial & Cultural Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-9365 • E-ISSN: 1470-1197
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14649365.2019.1672778
OpenAlexW2977362478
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited45

This paper examines and theorizes the organizational structures and effects of an ambitious urban volunteering program that has been developed by one of Germany's wealthiest philanthropic foundations in order to support, enhance, and promote volunteering. As such, the program represents an epitome of a transformative philanthropy by which foundations hope to bring about lasting societal consequences on all spatial scales. However, by attempting to trigger effects outside its own boundaries, foundations are at risk of overstraining themselves. Based on formal documents, interviews, and participant observations, the paper illustrates and theorizes how the foundation combines rather traditional moral and formal rules of philanthropy and volunteering with ambitious and transformative goals. More precisely, the paper explores (i) how and why the foundation enacts itself and its environments, (ii) how and why it uses interactions to exploit the power of the gift, and (iii) how and why it tries to use a scientific evaluation to generate legitimacy. In contrast to comparable studies that infer from practice to (neoliberal) motives the paper takes the organizational constitution of foundations more seriously. Consequently, it invokes a cybernetic notion of control to understand the program's multifarious relationships of power

Constitution · Economics · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Foundation (evidence · Legitimacy · Order (exchange · Pedagogy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Public relations · Sociology · Transformative learning · Law · Nonprofit Sector and Volunteering · Social Work Education and Practice · Tourism, Volunteerism, and Development