Philanthropisms Sarah Jeffrey, Victoria Tayler & Lonnie Hackett: Risk, Success & Failure in Philanthropy & International Development
May 1, 2025
01:12:03
In this episode we discuss risk, success and failure in the context of international development and philanthropy, with Sarah Jeffrey (Vitol Foundation), Victoria Tayler (Risk Pool Fund) and Lonnie Hackett (Healthy Learners). Including
- What is the Risk Pool Fund and how does it work?
- What are the key market failures or needs it is designed to address?
- Are grantees often unwilling to highlight “failures” to their funders, for fear of losing future support?
- Are funders less likely to be objective in evaluating challenges faced by grantees when their own money is directly affected?
- Is a drive to keep “overheads” low part of the challenge?
- Can the collectivisation of risk through pooling offer reassurance to funders?
- How do you distinguish between foreseeable and unforeseeable problems?
- What role does RPF’s External Review Panel play?
- Does the experience of organisations on the ground give them a different perspective on risk?
- Is scaling the goal? Would replication be more appropriate? Or is the aim to highlight a market failure and thereby change funder behaviour?
- Has the RPF had an impact on the perception of risk among the funders involved in it?
- Are the insights from the fund being used to inform any preventative work designed to reduce the risks of certain kinds of failures occurring?
- What impact are we seeing so far from the dismantling of USAID, and what should we expect to see longer term?
Related Links:
- Risk Pool Fund
- Healthy Learners
- Risk Pool Fund model analysis report
- RPF paper, "Charting the divide: When funders perceptions of risk collide with on-the-ground realities"
- WPM article on "Philanthropy at a time of chaos"
- Philanthropisms interviews with Ewan Kirk, Sadaf Shallwani and Martha Lackritz-Peltier.