Theory of Change: #13: Is it OK to take 'tainted money'?
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Theory of Change: #13: Is it OK to take 'tainted money'?

B2Upper-intermediateSeptember 8, 20261 hr 18 min

In the latest episode of the Theory of Change podcast, human rights activist Kavita Nandini Ramdas discussed the deep systemic contradictions of modern philanthropy, its uneasy relationship with grassroots activism, and why nonprofit organizations must stop playing quiet to keep elite funding. Ramdas, currently a senior strategic adviser at the International Planned Parenthood Federation, has spent years fighting both inside and outside major philanthropy — including as a close adviser to some of the world’s most prominent foundation leaders. What she sees today is a philanthropic sector that is “running afraid from Trump” and recipient organizations that rarely challenge their funders...

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On one hand, money from big philanthropic foundations funds some of the most important

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There's an uncomfortable paradox at the heart of billionaire philanthropy. On one hand, money from big philanthropic foundations funds some of the most important work in the world. Programs to help vulnerable communities, to protect the environment, to defend human rights.

0:25

It's a critical lifeline for a lot of nonprofit organizations and organizers. On the other hand, the source of that money is very often extraordinarily wealthy individuals, most of them men, most of them white, who have built fortunes on the very economic systems that generate inequality in the first place.

0:48

It's a tension that Kavita Nandani Ramdas has navigated her entire career as a prominent feminist activist who has worked both inside and outside some of the world's most influential foundations. She has learned a lot about what it really means and what it costs to speak truth to

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