person
Charles Keidan
Charles Keidan is a UK based expert on philanthropy and charitable giving, and Visiting Scholar at the Stanford University Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. Charles served as the inaugural CEO of the Pears Foundation between 2004 and 2012, establishing Pears at the vanguard of family and faith philanthropy. In this capacity, Charles co-authored and edited Family Foundations Giving Trends between 2008-12, an authoritative source of data and analysis, credited with driving renewed interest in family philanthropy in the UK. At Stanford, Charles co-teaches ‘Theories of Civil Society, Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector’ with Bruce Sievers, a class in which students learn about the origins of philanthropy and develop deliberative skills to thoughtfully distribute $100,000 to charitable causes. As Philanthropy Practice Fellow at City University London, Charles is spearheading a study on the teaching of philanthropy at European Universities, for publication in 2014. Other research interests include the political foundations of philanthropy, and the role of philanthropy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Charles has a deep interest in philanthropy’s capacity to promote, or set back, inter-cultural understanding and he has worked to foster critical thinking about the conflict through the creation of academic posts, experiential learning and intra-faith initiatives.