An international conference on social justice philanthropy was held in London on 1 March 2013. The conference brought together academics, policy-makers and practitioners, in order to gain a greater understanding about how philanthropy operates in practice and the moral judgments that underpin charitable giving.
Both theoretical and day-to-day contexts in which decisions about philanthropic giving are made were explored at the day-long conference. In a time of limited resources and greater need, conference speakers were also asked to examine the traditions, customs and rules that influence grant-givers. The big question of the day was surrounding the concept of social justice philanthropy and whether this offers a new model of philanthropy.
The conference was organised by Dr Balihar Sanghera and Dr Kate Bradley from the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research at the University of Kent.
The University of Kent’s Centre for Philanthropy is dedicated to understanding the social processes and cultural experiences by which people acquire moral dispositions to care for the needs of others. The Centre conducts research into the ways in which our capacity for fellow feeling is socially cultivated, corporately structured, politically mediated, and economically expressed. Kent’s Centre for Philanthropy is committed to understanding the contributions of philanthropy, charity and humanitarianism to the development of humane forms of society and contributes to publications, conferences and reports in this area.