Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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All right. Hi everyone.
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My name is Peter rather be and I'm here to present my research
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proposal for elites and inequality in the realm of Pluto Pluto philanthropy.
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Um So first and foremost my research is
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focusing on this intersection between philanthropic foundations,
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elites and international influence.
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So starting here, I dove into these pretty separate pools of academic literature,
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looking at elite studies, looking at philanthropy foundations.
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I was looking, I've been looking at international policy analysis,
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foreign affairs studies, you know, all these different kind of sectors because
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truthfully there's not a lot of
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overlap between the two.
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There's a couple connections between flint and elites
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and then between foundations and foreign policy,
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but not between all three.
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Um so with philanthropy and foundations of
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course when you read through those names,
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you might actually recognize a few of those
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names because they were some of our readings
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for the potato flan three week and then if you look at the next section,
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the elite section,
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of course I've got Justin frills billionaire wilderness in there,
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Rachel Shermans study on the new york
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release that we read and I think everyone really enjoyed and then of
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course I've got some classic works of foreign policy and policy influences by like
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Berman and wang and johnson um and then also a couple
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of other ones by like an Genova and all those people.
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So just kind of
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really diving into these three separate groups.
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I found that there was just a lack of
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research done in the way that private foundation executives
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make their decisions and ultimately influence international policy,
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Which is when you really think about it,
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a connection that is you big us with the way
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that international organizations at least the 21st century work.
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But you know,
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it's a connection that's not necessarily
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understood especially on the academic level.
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Only just recently as academia is starting to
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recognize the importance of these large philanthropic foundations
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in funding and influencing international organizations in even
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more broadly if you think about it,
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you know government's policy all the way down to the local level.
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Um These philanthropic foundations have wide ranging influence
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and it's important because these foundations are
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responsible for massive amounts of funds.
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I mean we're talking
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trillions of dollars around the world being spent every single year. And
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you know and
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20 I think believe the last statistics I saw I was in 2018,
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alone, almost $480 billion us are donated in the US and you know that's a ton of money.
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And all these foundations function with
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essentially no public accountability.
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There are private organizations for all intents and purposes.
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So understanding what motivates foundational managers and benefactors in their
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decision making and in wielding their influence is important,
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not just for academic understanding but for people who
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work in the international sphere who are looking to
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potentially mobilize these funds and build reliable partnerships
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with these
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Pluto philanthropists essentially.
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Um And of course these have implications for global governance systems.
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Obviously the philanthropic sector policymakers from the locals,
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the even international level.
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And then of course private individuals,
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How do these foundations with all this money
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um that they might have earned from us purchasing their products for one?
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How does that impact us as individuals and how do the
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decisions that they impact on the international level influence us?
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So all of these things are
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things that I've been thinking about for a while now.
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So of course it was zoom out,
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come on,
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say about that.
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So of course, focusing in a little bit.
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I wanted to focus on two questions that are intrinsically in our length. Right?
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First of all,
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in what ways do the perspectives
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and priorities of internationally focused philanthropic foundation
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founders slash benefactors and managers,
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how how do they impact their decision
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making and ultimately determined where funding goes?
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And of course going one step further than that,
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how does that then manifest into influence on an international scale?
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My goal or my aim with this project
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is to understand the link between foundations and international
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organizations as they become as they engage in
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more and more partnerships as time goes on.
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Another purpose is to provide a solid understanding of
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these connections and how they influence one another.
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So that practitioners, both
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in resource mobilization roles and within the philanthropic sector
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can connect with their counterparts and create better,
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more resilient partnerships.
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And of course,
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my third goal is to contribute to the
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academic conversation by hopefully feeling just one gap.
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Are making one connection that future researchers can utilize or build
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off of researchers that are far more qualified than I am.
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But yeah,
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so to get into the actual project,
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so I'm kind of looking at two
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separate connections that are obviously deeply interlinked um
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if you can think about it in two ways because we're talking individual people,
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their perspectives, their experiences connecting the foundational work,
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the foundations that they work for,
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and we're also talking about the work that the foundations
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do and how that influences the impact international organizations.
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So in one sense we're talking about how individuals impact
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international organizations,
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but I really wanted to emphasize the role of the Foundation
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in this project.
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So
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to study these,
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I will need to employ multiple types of methodology
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within the context of a couple of case studies.
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Um this includes content analysis of tax forms, annual reports,
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policy documents linked in profiles.
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You know, looking at anything I can get my hands on.
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This also involves analyzing public hearings,
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particularly from international organizations,
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but maybe also public hearings from
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they're foundational interactions with
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government.
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Of course I will be doing interviews with Foundation and international
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organization employees and potentially engaging in
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a bit of participant observation.
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If I'm so lucky to get to attend events and
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get to chat with people in a more informal setting.
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I'll do these case studies or do these methods within the context of case studies,
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both on the Gates Foundation,
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the Ford Foundation to the largest foundations
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of the world that conduct international projects.
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Of course,
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a key piece of this project will be visualizing the networks
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of individuals that connect the
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philanthropic sector with international organizations,
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particularly for these two foundations.
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Understanding these connections is imperative to understanding
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employee perspectives and foundation international organization dynamics.
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I will build these networks by analyzing current and
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former foundation employees is uh in linkedin profiles and biographies
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on websites and registering the connections in a database
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from which I'll build a small yet insightful network,
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like a visual representation of how these two
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entities are connected.
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Think of Justin Farrell's Teton County philanthropic
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network that he had in his book,
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but bring it down by quite a few factors.
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Of course,
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the most important part of this project will be
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the interviews with foundation and potentially IO employees.
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And in these interviews I'll ask questions
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relating to their role in the organization.
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What motivates their decision making,
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where they see themselves in the overall process,
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whether they see themselves as influential, all of those things, of course,
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I want them to be incredibly neutral.
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So framing the question is important.
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But once these interviews are completed,
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I'll transcribe them and sort their answers into groups,
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but the intention of capturing the way the
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employees feel about their work and their connection,
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see the larger international sphere.
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One way that I could sort these answers is to rank them 125 within each
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category based on least most connected and
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just see kind of how that sorts everything
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Doing it this way would help quite a bit with analysis,
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drinking connection on a scale of 1-5.
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I could even frame the questions that way.
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Um people would be chosen based primarily on their role within the organization,
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with an emphasis on higher up program managers who have
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been present at the Foundation for longer than five years.
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Of course this kind of criteria is important because many
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people who work at large foundations tend to move between
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many different sectors.
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The government, corporate sector philanthropy philanthropy, ngos,
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international organizations all over and they take their expertise with them.
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Um so figuring out finding people that have been at foundations for a while,
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at least in the realm of foundations is really, really important.
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Of course this connection kind of makes sense,
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especially moving from international organization to
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foundation because often in any field people
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move from being the beneficiary of funds to being the benefactor of funds.
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But it's particularly interesting in the international spirit because of
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the vast network in the scale that we're talking about.
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Of course the connections will also be a part of the focus in the interviews that
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I have with program managers and with employees
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that manage or direct interaction with international organizations,
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two large obstacles and I see that I for much but a slight about this
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would are going to be just access to documents and I hope to kind of
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access documents by simply just asking her doing google searches.
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However, I recognize that some sensitive documents may be difficult to obtain.
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Hope to utilize my status as a student who
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wants to work foundation in the future as leverage.
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If not, I'll use my contact and
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particularly contacts from the academic sphere to see how far I can
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get this also pertains access to people which is another hurdle.
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However,
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I'm not afraid of sending cold emails or cold calling people
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that I think would be best to talk to you about this
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project and then simply either being referred from them to someone else
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that I can speak with or just setting up a meeting.
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Um of course if that fails,
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I have an access plan that is similar to the one that I would use
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to access documents in, you know, leveraging connections and all of that stuff.
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As for a timeline and budget I planned,
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I expect that this project would take about two years with the majority of that
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time being used for the collection of
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data through document analysis and conducting interviews.
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I would hope to travel to new york and Seattle where the
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headquarters of the ford and gates
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foundations are quoted respectively respectively.
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And I would hopefully also make a trip to London and
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of course talk with people here in Geneva and international organizations
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in new york to really get a full broad sense of
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what's going on and how people feel no matter their location.
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Of course my gold,
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we have data collection committed in the 1st 12 months with analysis and writing
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occurring in the next seven inevitably I'll see gaps that need to be addressed.
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So I'll dedicate three months to fixing that and then two
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months to finalizing the draft and sending it off in total.
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That makes two years give or take a couple of months.
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As for the budget, I expect the research
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around $75,000 which incorporates travel costs, software costs,
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technology, you know, all of these things,
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buying people coffee and just really just generally gathering the data.
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Um, I don't expect the actual analysis or the writing of
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the report to take much money, but the actual gathering of data is what's important.
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This also involves purchasing data reports.
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Like we saw in the views presentation a couple of weeks ago,
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they can get pretty expensive.
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But in conclusion,
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I'm really thrilled to embark on this research
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project exploring the connection between foundation employees,
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their motivations, international organizations and if you have any questions,
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just let me know.
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Thank you so much