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In this episode, Rhod talks to Martha Lackritz-Peltier, General Counsel of nonprofit technology specialist TechSoup, about using tech to overcome some of the barriers to cross-border giving and the localization of international development. Including:

• What is the UN’s Grand Bargain? Why is this important?
• Why has it not been delivered on so far?
• Where does the reluctance of INGOs to cede control to local CSOs come from?
• Lack of trust/fear of fraud & mismanagement? 
• Unwillingness to relinquish power? Force of habit?
• Not knowing how to do it?
• How does NGO Source aim to address this problem?
• Are the biggest challenges in gathering and providing data on NGO equivalency technical, political or cultural?
• How do funders and grantees use this data?
• What steps need to be taken to protect NGO data and make sure it is not mis-used?
• What responsibilities do platforms bear for the choice of which organisations do and don’t make it onto their lists? 
• What are the key barriers to making a platform like NGO Source work at scale? (i.e. political/regulatory issues, buy-in from funders, buy-in from recipient orgs, technological challenges?)
• Are governments (in the US and elsewhere) actually keen to encourage and facilitate cross-border giving (given that it often results in reduced tax take in their own countries for benefits produced elsewhere)? #
• What is the most compelling argument for why governments should support cross-border giving?
• What barriers do international financial regulations (AML, CTF, sanctions etc) present to cross-border giving?
• Is there a danger that through supra-national bodies like FATCA, the US ends up imposing its own views and values on the rest of the world when it comes to philanthropy and civil society?
• What should we make of the promises of various new and emerging technologies (e.g. AI, blockchain etc) to “revolutionise” international development and cross-border giving?
• Is there a danger that technological solutions risk leaving behind smaller CSOs and grassroots organisations? 

Related Links

• TechSoup's website
• NGOSource on Twitter
• Martha's article on "Due Diligence in an Increasingly Remote World"
• Philanthropisms podcast with Sadaf Shallwani from Firelight Foundation
• Philanthropisms podcast on "The Platformisation of Philanthropy"
• Philanthropisms podcast on "Cryptophilanthropy: Boom or Bust?"