nonprofit – NVSQ Blog

Philanthropy’s Hidden Power: How Foundations Quietly Shape Society

Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels.com

Lauren Dula¹, Laurie E. Paarlberg² , and Imoleayo Adeyeri²

¹Binghamton University, State University of New York, USA, ²Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Indiana University, Indianapolis, USA

Imagine a world where unelected actors—wealthy, well-intentioned, and often invisible—have profound influence over public policy, social change, and even what counts as “the public good.” This isn’t dystopian fiction. It’s the real, often under-scrutinized, but often critiqued, world of philanthropic foundations.

For decades, foundations were seen as benevolent forces—generous patrons funding education, health care, climate action, and poverty alleviation. But as scholars and critics dig deeper, a more complex picture emerges: philanthropy is not only about giving. It’s also about power. The kind of power that shapes narratives, sets agendas, and determines whose voices get heard—and whose don’t. It is also about the norms, values, and government regulations that shape private actors’ capacity to enact their philanthropic values.

A recent integrative review by Lauren Dula of Binghamton University, SUNY, and Laurie Paarlberg and Imoleayo Adeyeri, both of the Lily School of Philanthropy, Indiana University (2025) entitled “Philanthropic Foundations and the Exercise of Power: An Integrative Literature Review of The Many Faces of Power” challenges us to take a closer look at the complexities of power and philanthropy, offering a fresh lens: the four faces of power—domination, coercion, subjugation, and manipulation—and how they operate in, through, over, and against philanthropic organizations.

Living in-between professional and caregiving identities – The experience of women working in rural development nonprofits in India

Poonam Barhoi¹, Manan Pathak² and Ranjeet Nambudiri³

¹Institute of Management Technology Ghaziabad, ² UPES Dehradun, ³ Indian Institute of Management Indore

Within rural development nonprofits in India, women professionals find themselves navigating the complex intersection of professional identity and traditional caregiving roles. While the unique socioeconomic conditions of the Global South have created opportunities for women to work in rural development nonprofits in India, obstacles exist in the form of gendered social expectations. Our recent study in NVSQ examines the experiences of such women professionals, who live in the liminality between ‘ideal professional identity’ and ‘traditional caregiving identity’. The study, which involved in-depth interviews with 21 women professionals working in rural development nonprofits across seven states in India, revealed that this liminal state is a source of significant identity conflicts. Our findings suggest that women professionals experience constant guilt due to the conflicting obligations of caregiving and professional worker identities and their inability to justify both roles to themselves.

Recruitment at What Cost? The Impact of Mass Market Interpersonal Fundraising

Aakash Thottam and Cassandra Chapman, The University of Queensland, Australia.

Picture this: you’re out shopping, immersed in thoughts of errands or weekend plans, when you’re approached by an earnest charity fundraiser armed with a clipboard and a persuasive pitch for support. This form of face-to-face fundraising is common in many countries but has earned the grim moniker of “chugging” (a contraction of “charity” and “mugging”), suggesting public unease with this fundraising method.

If you’ve ever been accosted by friends at a barbeque, you’ll know that many people find such practices to be annoying or even unethical. So why do charities continue to use methods that risk upsetting potential supporters?

The short answer is that there is evidence that interpersonal fundraising methods are effective at recruiting high volumes of new donors, especially face-to-face (where potential donors are approached on public streets or in malls) and door-to-door (where donors are approached in their own homes). However, there is not much evidence about what happens after those donors are recruited: do such donors become committed supporters who are valuable in the longer term? We explored precisely this issue in our recently published NVSQ paper with James Casey and Cassandra France.