Urban Institute

The Urban Institute is a research nonprofit focused on elevating the debate on social and economic issues and policies. This grant supports Urban to convene three events to consider how local partners and grantees think about the process of localization, whereby funding is increased and agenda setting authority is shifted from international actors to local actors, and what they hear when outsiders discuss them. This grant seeks to explore whether the framing by outsiders supports and strengthens such agency as local partners may have or want or whether well-intended localization efforts can be usefully rethought. This grant will not resolve the complexity surrounding localization, but it will (a) engage grantee counterparts in explaining their own diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) efforts in their local contexts and how support from their various funding sources aligns with, enhances, or distracts from their ambitions and (b) strengthen the Urban Institute’s work to support clearer thinking about how to balance and integrate sometimes competing objectives of inclusion, equity, and justice with more traditional metrics of development.

This grant supports the History of Philanthropy program at the Urban Institute’s Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy, led by Benjamin Soskis. Among the work that the program undertakes is editorial and curatorial work on HistPhil, the web publication devoted to the history of philanthropy, co-edited by Soskis, Maribel Morey, and Stanley Katz. The program also undertakes research and writing highlighting how historical inquiry can inform contemporary practice. This grant is part of the Knowledge for Better Philanthropy strategy.