The work of EWMI’s “Philanthropication thru Privatization” Project (PtP) was featured in The Economist on September 21st, 2013. Led by EWMI Project Director Dr. Lester M. Salamon, a Professor at the Johns Hopkins University and Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies, PtP aims to explore and promote the option for building community-based philanthropic endowments by capturing a portion of the proceeds derived from sales of former publicly owned companies.
The article in The Economist highlighted several examples of these sorts of privatization sales and the resulting creation of foundations such as the California Endowment in the United States, Volkswagen Stiftung in Germany, and Fondazione Cariplo in Italy.
EWMI's PtP team conducted in-depth case studies of these foundations and a range of others. The results of these case studies are reflected in a major new report by Lester M. Salamon and Associates entitled "Philathropication thru Privatization: Building assets for social progress." EWMI is now looking to identify future opportunities for sharing PtP best practices with institutions in other countries.
To learn more about the PtP project, please visit p-t-p.org.