ABSTRACT
Foundations have enormous potential to add to the problem-solving capacity of modern democratic societies. This potential is currently largely unfulfilled due to a low-key malaise affecting the foundation sector.This malaise is not about money in the sense that limited philanthropic resources keep foundations from achieving greater impact. Nor is it about mandatory pay-out rates and other hotly debated technical issues of how much of their assets foundations should be required to donate to philanthropic causes each year; nor is it about how assets and pay-outs should be valued in financial terms and according to what accounting standard. This low-key malaise is not even fundamentally one of legitimacy and governance, irrespective of more frequent and louder calls for greater accountability and transparency in the world of foundations.
