Niamh McCrea is a lecturer at the Department of Humanities, Institute of Technology Carlow, Ireland where she teaches community development, youth work and adult education, with a particular focus on equality studies. Fergal Finnegan is now a lecturer at the Department of Adult and Community Education, Maynooth University. His research interests include social movements, popular education, biographical research, social class and equality and higher education.

• Chapter 1: Funding, power and community development: an introduction, Fergal Finnegan and Niamh McCrea PART 1: New configurations of power and governance Chapter 2: Critical issues in philanthropy: power, paradox, possibility and the private foundation, Erica Kohl-ArenasChapter 3: ‘Walking the tightrope’: the funding of South African NGOs and the governance of community development, Natascha Mueller-Hirth Chapter 4: The reinvention of ‘civil society’: transnational conceptions of development in East-Central Europe, Agnes Gagyi and Mariya IvanchevaChapter 5: Social finance and community development: exploring egalitarian possibilities, Brendan Murtagh and Niamh GogginChapter 6: Corporate funding and local community development: a case from the mining industry in Australia, Robyn MayesPART 2: Questions of state and grassroots democracyChapter 7: Funding community organising: diversifying sources, democratising civil society, Robert Fisher and Hélène BalazardChapter 8: ‘It is time to re-territorialise utopian thinking’: community, the commons and the funding of autonomous movements in Latin America - An interview with Marcelo Lopes de SouzaPART 3: Modes of agency and horizons of possibilityChapter 9: Keeping the show on the road: a reflective dialogue between a community worker and a funder, Lin Bender and Japhet MakongoChapter 10: Local philanthropy and women’s empowerment: the case of Tewa, the Nepal Women’s Fund, Rita ThapaChapter 11: Communities of hope? Gendered re-signification of microcredit in rural India, Debarati Sen and Sarasij MajumderChapter 12: Building alternative communities within the state: the Kurdish movement, local municipalities and democratic autonomy, Ulrike Flader and Çetin Gürer

"Funding, in austere times, is critical in community development. This book, however, makes an important contribution to our understanding of the costs, as well as benefits, of different funding models and their impact on community development principles and practice." Angus McCabe, University of Birmingham