PEPY Book Club: Just Another Emperor

[Daniela Papi]

Welcome to PEPY's newest book club book!

"Just Another Emperor: The Myths and Realities of Philanthrocapitalism" by Michael Edwards examines business involvement in philanthropy."

The full book is available for free here on http://www.justanotheremperor.org/

PEPY's Tim Rann recommended this book and says, as it is printed in very large type, this 90 page book is about a 2 hour read but sheds a lot of insight into the intersection of business and philanthropy. We thought this would be a good PEPY Book Club choice as incorporating business practices into NGO work is something we are constantly looking at and debating and also because, with a free on-line download - we can all access the book very easily!

Who is joining us?

Discussion up on PEPY NING shortly - so join in please!

Thanks for the reccomendation, Tim!

- Daniela

PS - For those working in ChezPEPY - the book is downloaded on the P:drive in a new folder called Book Club. Enjoy!

[Jonathan Spalton]

I'm all ready to comment!
Where where where?

- J

[Daniela Papi]

Here here!

[Jonathan Spalton]

This book prompted a lot of thoughts in me about the approach PEPY takes as opposed to the larger, established NGOs from the language used: p.31
'high-performance'
'results-based'
'data-driven'

Perhaps simply because PEPY is so young it does not judge itself numerically - it doesn't have 10 years worth of numbers to play with, get caught up in.
Whereas a major player might get wrapped up in knowing about the percentage increase/decrease in school attendance / infant mortality / water-borne disease etc

PEPY is struggling to even GET realistic numbers that MEAN anything! The judgements are therefore personal / relational / subjective but also communicated and real.
PEPY understands that you can't take attendance records for granted to be accurate and true if the teachers responsible for taking them don't understand their importance...
You can't take teacher attendance for granted because they're not paid enough to devote themselves full-time to this role.

There are any number of things you could do and say and understand from looking at lists of numbers and draw up glorious full-colour 10 year projections about what is needed and what is happening, but instead PEPY is sitting down and talking, communicating and building relations one on one with the community - its leaders and members. Committed to better understanding and better relationships.

"What seperates the good and bad performers is not whether they come from business or civil society, but whether they have a clear focus to their work, strong learning and accountability mechanisms that keep them heading in the right direction, and the ability to motivate their staff or volunteers to reach the highest collective levels of performance." p.44




"The new philanthropists believe there must be a magic bullet for everything, and instant cure for poverty" - Sanjay Sinha p.64
"things have to move at the pace required by social transformation"
"social transformation required humility and patience, the determination to hang in there for the very long term - a mirror image of the impatience and short-term thinking that drives most markets and entrepreneurs." p.67


perhaps the most important thing is to know what the success you are striving for is;
build schools? train teachers? increase attendance?
education? for what purpose? to become the future leaders of Cambodia? the future village chief? to hold a positive view of America/the west when they grow up?
wealthier communities?
clean drinking water?
quality of life?

Nothing is stationary, so you say if it's going to change, let's make it better, but everything is so complex that how can you know if you ARE making it better?
what do you measure? what do you look for?

What happenned to Bono's cancel world debt project? When suddenly the wealthy world is plunged into financial cris, does this mean goals like these should be abandoned or forgotten?

"Don't hold debates about philanthropy that excludes the voices of the poor themselves [...] those closest to the action have ideas and experiences that can shed light on problems and solutions"

Recently Daniela talked in her blog about how she has had to find the strength to make her own decisions based on her own expertise - for so long having taken the best advice from the best sources she now feels in a position to make some of those decisions for herself. Not that she no longer takes advice, but that now she often receives conflicting advice and has to make those decisions and stand by them on the grounds of her own expertise.
PEPY should have (and does have) a commitment to excellence and to expertise! PEPY might have started from scratch but it has always sought out expertise and hopefully will one day be a source of it.

It is this expertise that gives meaning to numbers and success - having a real understanding of the problems and the solutions (and the inherent problems in providing solutions). This is what I see PEPY striving to achieve.


In the meantime for me it is enough to walk into the grounds of Chanleas Dai and see 100 smiling faces playing, questioning and learning.

[Jonathan Spalton]

Also of interest to this idea was an article in the Guardian a few weeks back on how kindness has become a taboo in modern society;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jan/03/society-politics

and some further reading perhaps;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jan/10/corporate-philantropy-b...