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Beacon Impact Forum: Convening charities, government, the private sector and the philanthropy sector to grow giving and charities

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An image of participants at the Beacon Forum sitting talking at tables in the Guildhall in London

On 29 February, The Beacon Collaborative hosted the fourth Beacon Philanthropy & Impact Forum at the Guildhall in London. The invite-only event brought together 251 participants from across the philanthropy and impact communities and included philanthropists, impact investors, sector leaders, charity leaders, policy makers, academics, think tanks, regulators and media.

The purpose of the day was to bring together cross-disciplinary expertise to answer the question: What will it take to grow giving and impact in the UK?

During the day, attendees heard presentations and panel discussions from:

  • The Rt Hon Stuart Andrew MP — Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Sport, Gambling and Civil Society
  • Thangam Debbonaire MP — Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in the United Kingdom
  • Sacha Sadan — Director of ESG at the Financial Conduct Authority
  • Rory Brooks CBE — Philanthropist and trustee at The Charity Commission
  • James Broderick — Chair of the Impact Investing Institute
  • Ajaz Ahmed — Philanthropist, Ajaz.org
  • Patricia Hamzahee — Advisor, impact investor and philanthropist
  • Zaki Cooper — Founder of Integra Group
  • Jeremy Rogers — Manager of the Schroder BSC Social Impact Trust and Chief Investment Officer at Big Society Capital
  • Giles Shilson — Chair of City Bridge Foundation
  • Cath Dovey CBE — Co-founder of The Beacon Collaborative

Participants also took part in 60 lively roundtable discussions during which they swapped experiences, insights and wisdom as they tried to examine how we can break down the silos between the impact community and financial community.

Key themes captured

During the roundtables, the points of discussion were captured and the key findings extracted and formulated into the following themes:

  • Nurturing and supporting generosity and social impact requires long-term investment and would benefit from a national strategy for philanthropy
  • We need to continue building tools to support personalised philanthropy strategies
  • Sustainable investment strategies are moving from ESG towards impact investment, but more will be needed from policy makers and regulators

  • The challenge of effective impact measurement is nuanced with different needs and motivations in the philanthropy and impact investment sectors.


Each of these themes have been expanded and can be found in the Beacon Forum summary document.

The document summarises the themes that emerged from our keynote speakers and panel discussions and includes comprehensive notes, insights, quotes and questions collated from the roundtable discussions.

As a summary of key current issues, we hope it will be helpful to inform your ongoing work.

Download the Forum summary document

 

Perspectives and input were so valuable

This year’s Forum was an inspiring day that saw a rich exchange of ideas, dynamic discussions, valuable networking and potential future collaborations from experienced leaders from across the impact community.

We would like to thank all participants for their insightful contributions and range of perspectives and ideas. These will be valuable as we continue working towards advancing the philanthropy and impact agenda.

Thank you

The Forum could not have happened without our volunteer facilitators, note-takers and our wonderfully generous sponsors, supporters and partners:

  • Schroders
  • Barclays Private Bank
  • Redington
  • City Bridge Foundation
  • Charities Aid Foundation
  • Owen James Events

We’re making good progress — but what should come next?

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In March 2024, at the Beacon Philanthropy and Impact Forum, Cath Dovey gave a summary of the key learnings from Beacon’s five-year programme.

Cath Dovey stands at a lectern in front of screen showing a graph about growing philanthropy

I am often asked two questions. One: why do I focus my time on philanthropy? And two: what will it take to grow giving?

The answer to ‘Why philanthropy?’ is simple.

Philanthropy drives social innovation, environmental innovation and sustainable innovation. But its purest intention is to find ways of making the world a better place by supporting those who can drive change.

On the second question, ‘What will it take to grow giving?, I have spent six years looking for answers. And it boils down to one idea, if we want to grow giving, then we need proper systems in place to engage, enable and encourage those with financial resources to give and give well.

We are all part of that system and we can all improve it.

The Beacon Collaborative was set up to begin that process of change.

Our hypothesis was a simple one: that philanthropy would grow if we had a better system supporting it. And that if donors are properly engaged and enabled in their giving journeys then we would see philanthropy increase over time. 

Our 25 activities were intentionally catalytic – delivered with the organisations already active in the philanthropy ecosystem, and aimed at accelerating the development of philanthropy in the UK. This year, we have completed that plan. 

Philanthropy drives social innovation, environmental innovation and sustainable innovation. But its purest intention is to find ways of making the world a better place by supporting those who can drive change.

Here are just a few examples of the remarkable progress we’ve made over the last five years.

A few years ago conversations in the sector identified the key activities and priorities that could transform our landscape for giving.

Appointing a Philanthropy Champion within government

Government is an essential partner in growing  philanthropy. The sector can do a lot, but it cannot influence the national conversation alone, nor can it change our culture of generosity without a strong partnership with government.

There are practical reasons for this: policy and regulatory changes are needed to smooth the path for philanthropy. Many of these changes are minor: a change in tone, a change in emphasis, a tweak here and a nudge there.

With intentional support from government to overcome the points of friction in the system, our sector can stop finding workarounds and start focusing on delivering scalable growth.

Political support will also raise philanthropy up the national agenda, and with that will come greater awareness and media interest – moving philanthropy out of the fringes (where stories are either feel-good or focus on failure) and bring it closer to the mainstream where awareness can grow.

And there are governance reasons that we need political support. If philanthropy is going to have a legitimate place in civil society, then its role and accountability need to be considered and managed at a policy level. Individual donors cannot be left to justify the legitimacy of their contributions.

In simple terms, if we want to change our culture of philanthropy, then we need support from the top.

Engage the FCA to mandate training on philanthropy and impact for wealth advisers

Decisions about giving or investing for impact are fundamentally financial in nature. Individuals who are making those decisions need to know what they can afford to give within the context of their wider commitments and liabilities. And they need support to get their money where it can do most good.

These are wealth decisions, and are set within the context of an individual or a family’s values and objectives. If wealth advisers cannot talk to their clients about their social and environmental impact goals, then they are not fully meeting the wealth needs of their clients.

The issue here is that wealth advice is a highly regulated activity – so much so that wealth management firms will not go beyond the guard-rails of what the regulations say. And so, if philanthropy is not squarely on the regulatory agenda, then it is not on the agenda of boards and management teams sitting in wealth management firms.

So we need, at the very least, a training regime that puts philanthropy and impact on the regulatory agenda. Firms need to be confident that their advisers are trained to provide this kind of advice, and that it is sanctioned by the regulators, and advisers need to feel confident to start these conversations with their clients.

The regulations are starting to move in this direction with the new Sustainability Disclosure Requirements regime.

Encourage government to support match funding and blended finance

Once advisers can engage donors in conversation on philanthropy and impact, the next question is: what are they going to do with their money? What needs to happen to get it where it is needed most?

The remaining two actions address this challenge. I’ll start with match funding and blended finance. These are mechanisms that collectivise funding to meet a clear and targeted need.

In the case of match funding, the offer of a match from government, or other funders, provides a powerful incentive to bring smaller donors together around an identified need.  If your £5,000 is matched to make £10,000 then smaller donors can start to feel they are making a difference.

If that donation can go to a pre-screened, specific charity that is part of a wider programme, then the  individual donor is not only directly engaged, they are confidently engaged in contributing to larger purpose.

There have already been a number of match funding partnerships between government, philanthropy and civil society  – I am thinking particularly of those that were run during Covid.

The next step is to bring these to the widest possible donor base and on a much more consistent basis. As a sector we have been building our collective knowledge, capacity and experience through a number of thematic match funds.

I am thinking of:

  • The Environmental Funders Network pioneering the Green Match Fund, which has raised a total of £9 million across three years.
  • The Childhood Trust has raised £8.2 million over two years through the Big Give powering 100 charities in London to fight child poverty.
  • The Women and Girls Match Fund, thanks to support from the DCMS Tampon Tax fund, achieved a total of £4.1 million which went to 162 women’s charities across the UK.
  • And, the first Arts for Impact Match Fund which goes live in March 2024 with a target of £2.5 million.

These specific match-funding programmes have raised about £20 million over the last three years and will be scaled again this year thanks to an increasing number of philanthropists and funders realising the value of these collective opportunities.

They have connected charities with new supporters, including corporate funders, trusts and foundations, major donors and the general public by providing an easy way to take positive action on specific issues.

Building on this experience, we are ready, as a sector, to run more of these programmes. Partnership with government would not only offer the opportunity to build greater scale, but also to align programmes in a more targeted way against national needs.

Building better data measures on philanthropy

Better data about all aspects of philanthropy and the charity sector will be essential for growing giving and getting that money where it is needed most.

In Beacon’s programme of activity, we focused on one aspect of the larger data conundrum. We sought to answer the question: how much philanthropy is taking place in the UK today?

I was privileged last year to work with Cathy Pharoah, from Bayes Business School and Tom McKenzie from Cologne International Business School, and a working group of experts on philanthropy, economics and data. We took the first steps into this challenge.

We built a test model using extensive survey data that suggests at least
£7.8 billion was given by high-net-worths in 2022 – a new insight into how much the UK’s wealthy are contributing to good causes

Why is this important?

Because if we are serious about growing giving, we need to know how much is given now, and by whom, and the potential for growth. Only with that information can we put the right resources behind the growth effort.

£7.8 billion is a significant contribution. Putting it into context, it is £1.2 billion more than the total income of health charities last year.

It suggests many of the rich are pulling their weight. Let’s celebrate their contribution so that we can encourage others to get started.

We are not stepping out, but we going to step back a little to make sure our future programme of work remains additive to the wider sector. What kind of organisation Beacon needs to be to sustain the progress we have made?

Beacon going forward

Beacon’s work over the last five years has brought different parts of the philanthropy sector together to get under the skin of these challenges and to try to find sector-based solutions.

We launched in 2019 with a workplan and two promises: we would catalyse change and we would be time-limited in our activity. The completion of our workplan this year means we have now completed that original mandate.

So the question we have been asking ourselves at Beacon is, what next?

From next month, we are going to reduce our external activity in order to take stock.

We are going to look at what has changed in the sector, revisit our mission and re-examine what are the critical things that need to be done to drive the next phase growth and development in philanthropy.

But we cannot do this in isolation.

So from April we will be reaching out widely to the philanthropy sector to get their views on how the sector has evolved and where it still has development and capacity gaps that could be usefully filled by Beacon.

We are not stepping out, but we going to step back a little to make sure our future programme of work remains additive to the wider sector. What kind of organisation Beacon needs to be to sustain the progress we have made?

Inevitably, while we go through this exercise it will mean less external activity.

So, as Beacon moves into our new phase, I’d like to thank all those who have supported our mission to grow philanthropy and impact so far. Our funders, our partners, our boards and councils, colleagues and the wider sector.

It has been an incredible journey over the last five years, and I can’t think of a more rewarding experience than working to shape the vision for this sector to drive the future of impact in the UK.

Thank you to everyone who has given their time and support over the last five years to help drive the change and the growth we have seen in our sector. It is testimony to your work that there are now strong foundations to build on.

Scoping the high net worth philanthropy market

Author(s)

Cathy Pharoah, Cath Dovey, Tom McKenzie, Vivek Thaker

Year

2023

View
Cath Dovey CBE

Cath Dovey

Co-founder, The Beacon Collaborative

Formerly a co-founder of Scorpio Partnership, the global wealth management strategy and research firm, Cath led the firm’s high-net-worth and strategy research capabilities for two decades. In the field of philanthropy, she headed Scorpio Partnership’s global research work with major donors, family givers and family foundations. Cath chairs Rosa, the UK fund for women and girls, and is a trustee of Philanthropy Impact.

Cultivating Generosity: The money coach: Shifting your wealth from worry to wellbeing

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Iris Brilliant is an anti-capitalist money coach who guides wealthy people who are confused about what to do with their money. She offers a compassionate space for people to address their shame and anxiety about money. Using her expertise in social justice philanthropy and investing she helps them create a plan for their wealth, lead values-aligned lives and help fund social justice.

Iris Brilliant

Here she talks to Beacon’s Philanthropy Network Director Sarah Hughes…

Sarah:  I’m interested in the idea that money can make you unwell, or cause a lot of anxiety, including when you are wealthy. What is your experience of this and how does  anxiety manifest among the rich?

Iris: The moment we receive something good, we start grasping onto it and are afraid of losing it. That’s what I see happening with my clients when they inherit wealth or quickly earn more money than they’re accustomed to. There’s this very human reaction of immediately being afraid of losing it and grasping on tightly. As we grasp on, we don’t realise how much stress we’re putting in our body; how exhausting it is to suddenly be so afraid of losing something. Something that’s meant to be a gift and a privilege becomes a kind of burden.

When that occurs, a great deal of suffering immediately happens both to the individual and  to their sense of self in the world and their relationships. My work starts there, by helping my clients notice the tension they’re holding in their body and emotionally.

It really doesn’t matter how much money people have. They could inherit half a million, they could inherit 20 million. The stress is still the same. I try to help my clients recognise those stresses and unpack them. What are our fears of what will happen if we lose or give away some of this money? Or consider not investing the money in super lucrative extractive investments just to get richer?

Supporting people to really examine what those fears are helps them make an active choice: how much stress they want to take on when it comes to the tension between protecting versus softening the grip around their money.

Sarah: Iris, can you explain what a money coach is and why you became (an anti-capitalist) one?

Iris: Broadly speaking, money coaches come from an industry of all kinds of professionals, some of whom want to help you make more money, while others want to help you work on your relationship with money and so on. It’s a broad term, but there is a small group of us in the US who work with wealthy people on wealth redistribution commitments. It’s a very small subset.

I’m an anti-capitalist money coach, which means everything I do is played out in the wider context that we’re living in corporate capitalism and we’re functioning in an economy that is not sustainable, that isn’t working for the majority of people and that really relies on exploitation to function properly.

So I take the stance that may be controversial, which is that I don’t believe there’s such a thing as moral capitalism. I don’t believe there’s such a thing as capitalism being reformed to work better for people. My belief is we need a new economy that’s going to actually support the well being of the majority of the world and of the planet.

So I’m an anti-capitalist money coach who specifically works with wealthy people who want to do the opposite of what they were told to do! That is to redistribute wealth, to divest from extractive investments, to have the audacity to talk about money and to disclose their finances for the sake of being transparent in their lives. To dare to consider giving up unearned power and moving towards a life of more humility and closeness with others.

And to also just dare to feel and explore all of the emotions that we have that are connected to wealth and our money stories and our family’s money stories.

Shifting from worry to wellness: Getting real, personal beliefs systems, family stories, big picture commitments

Sarah: Are there any clear steps or stages that a wealthy person can move through to shift from money worry to money wellbeing?

Iris: There’s a very clear formula. Everyone’s a bit different, but for the most part, there’s a kind of predictable arc I take clients through to experience a lot more ease in their relationship with money and wealth.

The first is getting clear on how much money you have, which might sound simple, but I would say 90% of my clients are inaccurate in how much money they think they have, until we really go through and add up their bank accounts and their assets. I would say 99% of the time my clients are richer than they thought.

Then we explore people’s default beliefs about money, and it never ceases to amaze me just how many different and opposing beliefs we carry about money that we’ve just inherited from society and from our family. So we really unpack our different moral beliefs about money and power and our different emotional experiences and early lived experiences connected to money.

I often tell my clients that my first memory of money was my Dad taking me shopping, and he was too embarrassed to come into the girls clothing area, so he sent me off by myself with a $100 bill. I was nine or ten. I don’t know why he decided to do that. I lost the money while I was trying on clothes, and I just had this horrible sinking feeling that I was going to get in a lot of trouble and that I was spoiled and bad for losing this money. And I did get in trouble. As a result, I used to carry a lot of shame and fear. The idea that I’m bad at money and if I make a mistake with money, I’ll get in really big trouble comes directly from that first experience.

Additionally, we will explore legacy and family messages around money because a lot of us carry instinctive money reflexes that we’re not sure of the origins for. However, we know trauma gets passed down intergenerationally. So there’s always trauma in a family lineage that is in some way connected to safety and survival. For those of us who are raised wealthy and have wealth today, demystifying that can help us understand why we have so much fear about our security.

And then we will look at values we have that are bigger than any feeling or emotion about money. An example could be someone setting out that they want to commit to climate justice and to feeling proud of what they did in their lifetime to support different ecosystems to flourish. That becomes their guiding principle and is set as something that matters more to them than their individual comfort. This allows them to create a long term vision for what they want in their lives.

Finally, when we have those commitments laid down as part of a vision for the life they want to lead, we identify the measurable, courageous steps they’re going to take to move towards that long term vision, both for themselves and for the world they want to see. That always includes setting a concrete giving goal that feels more brave than ones they’ve had before.

And then the coaching shifts into offering accountability and support to ensure they’re making progress on their goals and supporting them when they get stuck, which often happens when we have ambitious goals.

Sarah: Do you include all the different ways they can use their capital for good in your coaching? Would you talk about impact investing and if so, does that surprise any of your clients?

Iris: All of my clients here in the US are very interested in impact investing and divestment and all the different aspects of the burgeoning ‘just economy’. So no one is surprised to look at leveraging all their actions and resources.

I find it a tricky topic, however. I recently read Marjorie Kelly’s book “Wealth Supremacy: How the Extractive Economy and the Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today’s Crises” and I recommend it. It’s an incredible book.

One of the things she talks about is capital bias, which is a bias towards maximum increase of capital, no matter what, which is ultimately to benefit the wealth holders and the shareholders at the expense of workers, the economy and the planet.

I worked at a wealth management firm that does social impact investing. And in working there and studying different types of socially responsible investing, I’ve learned we have to be really careful to look under the hood of where our money is being invested. There will always be marketing that tells us that it’s impact-oriented or more socially aware than other forms of investments, which it might very well be. The bottom line is, when we are making more profit than inflation rates from our investments, we’re always extracting.

Marjorie has a great expression in the book: “There’s a dream world of wealth. The fiction that financial gains somehow fall from the sky pristine and unblemished.”

And that’s exactly the myth we’re taught. You see this little number on your computer screen that’s invested somewhere. You don’t know where it is. It magically grows as it’s supposed to, and all is well and good. But underneath that number on your screen are human beings who are working and being barely paid for their efforts. They don’t get to have any agency in the company. And the profits go to us, those who aren’t doing anything.

So part of what I do is help clients develop more discernment around which types of investments truly are centred on social justice and which ones are just a little bit less bad than being invested in oil companies.

The wealthy white family has firm rules

Sarah: Iris, you’ve written about the “rules of the white wealthy family”. Can you summarise them for us and why wealthy white people, or all who are wealthy, should understand and resist them?

Iris: I think this article series is relevant to all wealthy people, although not every message will resonate as deeply with families of colour or immigrants who have different family and community values. But some of them certainly still will, because these are general rules of wealth.

In the ten years I have been doing this work I have seen two things hundreds of times over that make me very curious.

I’ll be coaching people on increasing their giving and I’ll find that a lot of the people who come to me are only giving away 1% or 2% of their money annually and want to increase this and will happily increase a little bit. But when we explore the possibility of greater giving from the principal or corpus, there’s this full body shutdown. Again, it doesn’t matter how big the corpus is, there’s an intense fear that I see on my clients’ faces. This total block that it is not okay to spend down, it is not okay for the next generation of your family to have less money than you.

The second contradiction is with clients who are very committed to community, perhaps they live more in a community and they have a really strong network of relationships, but they are terrified to share money with people they know. They can give to nonprofits, but they are scared and overwhelmed at the concept of giving money to people in their lives who deeply need money.

These two contradictions led me to a lot of research and then to this article series which made total sense to write because I see so much of it.

The first article is my best attempt to examine the unconscious beliefs that we were taught about family and money. Beliefs that serve to preserve wealth in wealthy families and not have us share money with anyone else, through the guise of it being just. This is how family is and is intended to be.

The first rule is that the nuclear family is the only legitimate form of family. And I know it very much lives in my body that in order to have a good or successful life, I need a spouse and I need to have kids. I think a lot of us feel that pressure and there’s a lot of reasons why. But one of them is because the nuclear family is one way to preserve wealth within a wealthy family and to make the lines of inheritance extremely clear.

The next, which goes with the first rule, is that you can’t share money outside the family. The only new person you can bring in is someone that you will marry. Beyond that, it’s inappropriate, it’s rude, it’s simply not done. To share money with your friends, employees, neighbours; it’s inconceivable for us and another thing that serves to preserve wealth within wealthy families.

That’s two of the rules, the next three cover why anything goes in the name of family, secrecy and the strict behaviour code that traps us all.

I really encourage your readers to dig into the article, and I would add another read that I think they might appreciate. This one is about the conditionings in philanthropy and finance around perpetuity legacy with the default assumption that we need to preserve wealth for future generations and that generations should only get wealthier over time. This is core to what I want your readers to consider questioning.

It’s natural and normal for parents to want to feel reassured that their children will be okay when they die. That’s just such a natural and loving instinct and a really beautiful thing. I want people to avoid taking it to the extreme though.

Because when you give your kids enough money to live off of indefinitely without having to work, let alone when you create trust funds for your grandchildren or your unborn grandchildren — which people can do and my clients parents often do so — you are actually setting up your children to be really disempowered in their lives.

Rather than a gift, you are opening them up to a huge world of existential turmoil, insecurity around their ability to work, separation and alienation from others, potential  entitlement, and a lot of mental struggles and mental health issues at the expense of keeping more resources that really the rest of the world desperately needs.

So I encourage anyone concerned about releasing capital and letting their descendants down to reconsider, as leaving massive inheritance might not be the gift that you hope it would be.

I meet a lot of clients who would much prefer quality time with their parents over all the material luxury. It’s kind of tragic because I believe the parents were working really hard with the belief they were taking care of their kids but then were unintentionally neglecting them and having their children just basically be raised by other people.

And so most children just want quality time and emotional nurturing from their parents and they want that more than toys and they want that more than money.

That’s really at the core of where we get stuck around wealth redistribution is around parenting and around family. I encourage your readers to just reflect on what type of legacy you really want to leave behind and if that can really be achieved through inheritance.

Exploring generosity

Sarah: I’d love to know what generosity means for you personally, how it either shows up in your life or work, or how you get to tap into your own generosity.

Iris: For me, generosity is doing something that is difficult to do. I don’t feel particularly generous if I buy lunch for someone. It’s a nice thing to do – a gesture. But I more feel generous when I do something that’s genuinely hard. So, for example, my friend went through a really traumatic experience when they got robbed and they didn’t want to sleep alone in their home. So I loaned them my dog. My dog is my emotional support animal. I love her so much.

At the time I was really struggling with my mental health and I really didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to be away from my dog. But I knew it was important to do. To me, that is being generous — more than doing things that externally look or seem generous. I feel the same way about receiving.

If somebody comes and they’re super busy and stressed but they still make the time to show up for me and to offer me emotional support or to spend time with me, even if it’s challenging for them, I really feel the generosity of that.

I think that that’s what’s hard about what it means to be generous.

When you have $20 million, at what level would you have to give for it to really challenge your life and affect your life? That’s going to be quite a big number, right? And so I think that’s where giving can sometimes get confusing when we’re working with such unfathomably high numbers, because it’s just difficult to give at a level that will actually reflect some type of sacrifice on your end.

Sarah: Your dog example is incredibly generous. When you did such a thing, did you enjoy it? Did you allow yourself to feel the halo of generosity? Because you’re allowed to feel warm and fuzzy.

Iris: I absolutely believe that. I believe in taking in the moment. I usually encourage clients to pause after they donate and just notice what they feel in their body. I have them imagine the communities they’re supporting. With the dog story, if I’m honest, I think I felt a mixture of relief for my friend who I knew was sleeping better, and felt reassured, but I also felt sadness because I missed my dog. But then I got her back. It wasn’t that big of a deal.

Recommended reading

Where next?

The Philanthropy Ecosystem: Donor educators

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The idea of the donor journey is common in philanthropy because the process is rich in learning.

Learning about yourself and your values; about the cause you want to give to; and learning from others, whether peers or non-profits; and learning through doing.

All of the members of the donor support ecosystem we have touched on so far bring some form of knowledge whether that’s philanthropy advisors informing their client of different philanthropic approaches or giving vehicle providers explaining the pros and cons of different mechanisms for giving.

In this final article of the series, we will consider those whose primary focus is on learning — the donor educators.

These educators write books and guides on how to approach philanthropy, deliver training courses, and create bespoke learning journeys.

One such educator is Derek Bardowell (right), who is CEO of Ten Years’ Time.

Ten Years’ Time creates learning experiences for donors and foundations to interrogate their wealth, unlearn harmful practices and develop holistic, equitable and reparative approaches to philanthropy.

In this interview Derek explains more about Ten Years’ Time bespoke service which helps donors deep-dive into their cause area of choice and learn how to resource racial and economic justice with care and confidence.

Why is there a need for donor education?

Derek: I think it is crucial. Levels of private giving were going down and the percentage of funds given through charitable trusts and foundations remains woefully low.

I think we need to see a significant change in the culture of giving. That’s not to say that philanthropy can solve all the current problems and issues, it can’t, but there could be more of it and it could be working harder, particularly for minoritised communities.

We’ve gone through Covid, we’ve had the killing of George Floyd and that has created a personal reckoning. People are thinking differently. People of wealth are thinking very differently. They are thinking less about legacy and more about what they do while they are alive.

This is a fantastic opportunity to change not only how much people give but also how they give. Our workshops and coaching help people understand how their wealth was accumulated, how they’re investing it, and who has been harmed by it, and encourages them to look at the whole picture so they understand how they can give their money away in a holistic way.

What do donors get from a learning experience with Ten Years’ Time?

Derek: We work with donors over a three to seven-month period, sometimes longer. We support people on a deep, personal journey and they value being able to have conversations that they perhaps can’t have in other spaces.

They are usually at a level in their professional lives where no one challenges them or criticises their work. We give them that level of challenge.

We also give our clients a firm perspective about the issue that they are dealing with, and encourage them to invest in the behavioural, policy, systemic or structural changes that might create long-term changes.

We also add knowledge that a number of clients would just not be aware of. This includes respecting the knowledge in communities. We talk about decolonisation and intersectionality in a way that breaks these down and shows donors how these are relevant to their giving.

We give donors the knowledge that means they have the confidence to invest wisely, equitably and reparatively.

Can you tell us more about the client’s journey?

Derek: Our clients will go through a range of emotions – there will be ‘aha!’ moments and times when they’re stuck in the mud. We go along the bumps in the road with them because we’re also learning alongside them. That’s important because, whilst we know a lot about some things, we don’t know everything and also because it can be lonely and difficult doing this work.

The aim is to get the head and heart working together as opposed to it being strictly about the heart.

Normally, during the journey, they will find advisors who are quite specific to their cause area and who can become their trusted advisor. We hand on the baton to them. We want clients to realise that we may leave them, but the journey should not end for them.

What has changed for donors?

Derek: There is a greater awareness of philanthropy and its role and a lot more critique. This has a dual affect: some donors are really well informed, and we can have more nuanced conversations; others are afraid to dip their toes into any of this work and a big part of our role is to absorb this anxiety.

We still cover the same themes as before, such as what is systems change, but we’ve changed who is delivering that message.

We will look at this through a gender equity lens and bring in women and women of colour as speakers, experts and facilitators.

For our clients, they are increasingly aware of the responsibility to do more than funding their old university or what’s on their doorstep and we help them to think differently about how they respond to global issues and move beyond just giving small percentages of their wealth.

Derek Bardowell is CEO of Ten Years’ Time and author of Giving Back: How To Do Good, Better

derek@tenyearstime.com

Emma Beeston

Emma Beeston

Independent Philanthropy Advisor

Emma Beeston is an independent Philanthropy Advisor supporting individuals and families with their giving.

Her book on Advising Philanthropists (Co-authored with Beth Breeze) is out now.

www.emmabeeston.co.uk

Read the rest of Emma’s Philanthropy Ecosystem series:

Foundation Practice Rating: philanthropy and public accountability

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When donors transfer money or shares into a foundation or donor advised fund, they are doing more than tax planning. They are making a commitment to using those funds for public benefit.

Tax reliefs for giving are offered precisely to encourage donors to make this transfer of wealth to civil society. This contract with the tax man raises interesting questions about how donors can best serve public benefit with the wealth they have ring-fenced for this purpose.

On one level, it is very simple. Any subsequent gift to a registered charity meets the tests of public benefit.

On another level, the processes that go into that funding decision also should also consider public accountability.

The larger the gift, the more important that decisions are taken with thought given to whether those decisions are open to public scrutiny and meet the needs of communities and wider society.

Unless there is an accountability framework in place, how does a donor know that their decisions are truly meeting the needs of the public good?

Tracking transparency, accountability and diversity

It is this line of thinking that led to the Foundation Practice Rating report, which saw its second annual report released today.

The FPR tracks the performance of 100 UK foundations according to their efforts on transparency, accountability and diversity. For true accountability, decisions have to be open to scrutiny and made with fair representation. The rating is based on 77 underlying questions.

The project is led by Friends Provident Foundation and supported by 12 other leading foundations, including Barrow Cadbury Trust, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and City Bridge Trust. 

The sample group includes the 13 foundations that fund the research and the UK’s five largest foundations by grant budget. The other 82 are a stratified random sample from the rest of the foundation market, drawn from among the community foundation and those listed in the Foundation Giving Trends report.

The methodology makes it difficult to compare results across years because the bulk of the sample has changed between years one and two (although the team does check comparability using statistical measures).

Overall, seven foundations received an A grade this year, compared to three last year. The average score overall was up 7%. Transparency is the strongest pillar with 57% scoring an A grade.

A window into a foundation’s practice

Even so, 22 foundations in the sample did not have a website. The report argues that having a website is an essential pillar of transparency, enabling grantees and the wider public to gain a window into a foundation’s practice. No foundation without a website scored above a D.

The report also notes that organisations with fewer than five staff were more likely to gain a D grade. It suggests that having too few staff to develop policy and disclose information could impede both performance and impact.

However, the weakest pillar in both years has been diversity, with 48% scoring a D grade. The report notes that many organisations have diversity commitments, but no evidence of plans or targets.

It is important to note that the rating does not include measures of impact, which it states would be too complex. Instead, it seeks evidence from public sources about whether foundations are transparent about their effectiveness.

The rating is therefore not a measure of how successful a foundation is in delivering its mission, but rather how accountable it is publicly to the communities it serves in the process.

Striking a balance between governance and engagement

The report raises interesting questions for individual and family foundations whose resources are directed primarily at their mission about the level of governance needed to achieve an appropriate level of public accountability.

How can individuals, or families, bring external voices to decision making? What are the opportunities for transparency and openness? And how can they ensure they effectively connect with the needs of grantees and applicants when deciding what and how to fund? 

For founder-led foundations, there is also a critical balance to be struck between governance and engagement. Being present in the work of the foundation, being able to take risks in pursuit of higher social gains, and to feel the psychological rewards from that action, are important motivating factors for many philanthropists. There is an inherent tension between this entrepreneurial spirit of founder philanthropy and the processes that come with greater professionalisation.

The report does not grapple with these issues. Its goal is simply to highlight that all foundations, regardless of size or resourcing, should consider themselves to be on a journey towards a high standard of accountability.

Its approach offers a robust checklist for anyone who might want to consider their next step. 

Cath Dovey CBE

Cath Dovey

Co-founder, The Beacon Collaborative

Formerly a co-founder of Scorpio Partnership, the global wealth management strategy and research firm, Cath led the firm’s high-net-worth and strategy research capabilities for two decades. In the field of philanthropy, she headed Scorpio Partnership’s global research work with major donors, family givers and family foundations. Cath chairs Rosa, the UK fund for women and girls, and is a trustee of Philanthropy Impact.

Recommended reading

Related Pages

The Philanthropy Ecosystem: Giving vehicle providers

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Once a philanthropist commits to thinking about their philanthropy as a long-term activity, they need to decide which giving vehicle to use.

This vehicle will support them to ring-fence their money for charitable purposes and help manage its distribution and the involvement of family members.

Foundations

The traditional option has been setting up a foundation.

This is a regulated charity set up for public benefit, which makes grants in support of the chosen cause areas. It remains a popular model with almost three quarters of global foundations being set up in the last 25 years.

Recommended reading

The main downside is that it involves time, effort and some costs to administer because it involves setting up a legal entity that needs to report on its activity and comply with certain standards.

Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs)

The Donor-Advised Fund or DAF has become popular as a less time-consuming alternative.

The funds in a DAF are still committed to be used for public benefit but the DAF provider takes on the administrative burden. DAFs have been criticised because the money can sit in the fund and not be spent and so the donor can gain from the tax incentive before any money reaches a charitable cause.

However, they are also seen as an accessible mechanism that encourages giving and can certainly help a donor to act on their intention to be philanthropic whilst they work out exactly how they will give.

DAFs have increased in popularity over the last decade and there are many UK providers including Stewardship, Prism, CAF and NPT-UK.

Rosemary Macdonald

Community Foundations

In this interview, we spoke to Rosemary Macdonald (pictured right), CEO of UK Community Foundations, about the role of Community Foundations as providers of giving vehicles for philanthropists.

We asked her to explain what Community Foundations are and the benefits to donors of giving through them.

What is a Community Foundation?

Rosemary: Community Foundations cover every postcode in the UK.

They are based in a particular geographical area – a county, a city or, in the case of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, a country.

Community Foundations build an endowment from lots of different funders and use this as a sustainable source of funding to distribute grants locally.

They mainly support the smaller, grassroots charities in their area such as a Scout troop, older people’s lunch club or bereavement counselling service.

Community Foundations also play an important role in encouraging philanthropy locally; providing insight on local needs; and take a convening role in bringing the statutory, private and statutory sectors together to address long-standing issues such as knife crime or poverty.

Our role is to find the balance between the funders and the needs of the community – we sit in the middle as the translator and advisor to both, which is a unique position to be in.

What giving vehicles do Community Foundations offer?

Rosemary: There are three main ways we work with donors:

1. Named Funds – this is what we call DAFs. For those giving above a certain level, we offer a bespoke fund where they can give to the issues they care about. When donors set up a fund they get a fund agreement which sets out how the funds should be directed, reporting requirements and contribution to costs.

The Community Foundation manages the grant process, carrying out the due diligence on the groups supported to make sure they are the right fit and doing the right thing. The level of engagement varies with some donors wanting to see the applications and deciding which groups they want their funds to go to.

2. Pooled funds – This enables donors to combine their funds with others to address a particular issue such as young people, the arts, or a specific geography.

3. Flow-through funds – This is where a donor wants their money to be used immediately, often in response to a local appeal such as funds to support those affected by the cost-of-living crisis.

What is the benefit to the philanthropist of giving through a Community Foundation?

Rosemary: If a donor wants to make a real difference in a specific geography then they will find the best quality of advice from their Community Foundation.

They will have access to groups they would never come across who are doing amazing things in communities. We provide insight and understanding to make sure their funds go to the right people and places.

Giving through a Community Foundation is a much simpler option for those who want to do something but don’t want the hassle of setting up a new charity.

The donor does not have to worry about the governance or the reporting. We handle the financial side of things and the grant-making.

What changes have you seen?

Rosemary: A positive change is that donors are much more willing to think about unrestricted gifts and trust the groups they are funding to know how best to use this money.

Another change I have seen is that people want things to happen quickly. Because we have had so many crises (Covid, the floods, cost-of-living), donors seem to want to get their money out the door very quickly.

This has had a negative impact on Community Foundations’ ability to build their endowments. It is vital that Community Foundations have these endowments to provide long-term sustainability.

Most of the issues in communities are not going to be solved in three years.

Having an endowment enables more strategic grant-making where we can support longer-term solutions. We can fund groups for longer periods and give them the stability they need to do their job.

Groups will have a greater impact on people’s lives if they are not constantly worrying where their next funding is going to come from. We need donors to think about investing over the longer-term.

With thanks to Rosemary Macdonald, CEO, UK Community Foundations

Emma Beeston

Emma Beeston

Independent Philanthropy Advisor

Emma Beeston is an independent Philanthropy Advisor supporting individuals and families with their giving.

Her book on Advising Philanthropists (Co-authored with Beth Breeze) is out now.

www.emmabeeston.co.uk

Match funding is so powerful — especially when it quadruples donations

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Four crocuses

By Jane Cabutti, Environmental Funders Network

This month at the Environmental Funders Network we are busy working on the Green Match Fund – an annual campaign with the Big Give to raise money for environmental charities and to raise the profile of environmental philanthropy.

We are seeking match funding from philanthropists and foundations which will be used to incentivise donations from the public during the week of the campaign in April.

We are off to an excellent start: we have been offered £1 million in match funding by a private donor IF we can raise a further million in match funding from philanthropists and foundations ahead of the campaign.

This money, plus any further funding we are able to raise upfront, will be used to double donations from the public during the week of the campaign, offering a real incentive for the public to give.

Any funding that donors and foundations provide in match funding will therefore be quadrupled. 

The public campaign will run from 20 to 27 April, around World Earth Day on 22 April, and we aim to build on the amount raised last year – £2.8 million for 146 environmental charities.

Donations can go further, faster

Match funding is a fantastic opportunity for donors because it allows you to really amplify your funding without having to contribute more funds – your donations will go further and have a greater impact on the causes you care about.

By imposing a deadline and creating a sense of urgency, match funding campaigns create a sense of excitement, incentivising the public to donate even more and in a quicker fashion – and then share the campaign with others.

It is a fact that more people give, and people give more, when their donations are matched.

Who wouldn’t enjoy the thrill of seeing their donation instantly double or even quadruple?

 Who can pledge match funding?

Anyone who can commit the funds can become a match funder – whether you’re an individual donor, a foundation, a trust or a company.

The minimum match funding donation for the Big Give Green Match Fund is £10,000. You can direct your funding to the charities or issues you choose, or donate to the central fund, with projects chosen by the Big Give and EFN from those applying.

Giving to trusted sources

The Green Match Fund is an easy way for everyone – whether a major donor providing match funding or a member of the public donating during the week of the campaign – to give to trusted charities that have a big impact on the urgent climate and nature issues we are experiencing.

The Big Give has a rigorous application and due diligence procedure, and the ‘best in class’ projects that participate in the campaign are chosen by experts from the EFN and the Big Give.

Getting involved with the Big Give Green Match Fund

If you have an interest in match funding and supporting environmental causes and would like to see your donations have quadruple the impact for people and planet, then please consider pledging to the Green Match Fund.

Further details are here, or contact champions@thebiggive.org.uk.

The Philanthropy Ecosystem: The Connectors

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When we think of a philanthropist, we often imagine a ‘lone saviour’. Someone who works alone to determine how best to do good and acts alone to achieve their desired impact.

Of course this is far from the reality.

As we have already seen in this series, there is an ecosystem of support around donors (philanthropy advisors, thinkers, wealth managers) who can help them with their choices.

Philanthropists also do good through the actions of others – those partner organisations and community leaders they choose to support. Increasingly, there is a rise in collaboration, linked to the fact that the world’s problems are too big to be tackled without collective effort.

Part of the philanthropy ecosystem is made up of the connectors – the networks, platforms and collaborations that ensure philanthropy is less lonely.

They connect philanthropists to each other as well as wider learning, practice and ideas.

The Philanthropy Workshop (TPW) is part of this infrastructure supporting a global community of 400 high net worth philanthropists.

(There are others such as The Mesa and Beacon’s new Beacons Connect network which you can read about here.)

TPW was established to educate individual wealth holders and their families; providing frameworks, approaches, toolkits, principles and practices to help them have a greater impact.

Now, alongside the learning programmes, TPW is a community which provides a safe space for discussion and connection, convening peers to share best practice, to learn from and influence one another.

In this interview, Marie-Louise Gourlay, the Managing Director of Europe for TPW, tells us more about their work and how a community of peers benefits philanthropists.

Please tell us more about the work you do.

Marie-Louise: I work closely with a community of 100 philanthropists in the UK and Europe. I bring new philanthropists into the TPW community which involves understanding what they hope to do and identifying the support they need from TPW’s education and our community of peer philanthropists.

We have a core learning programme and that provides a shared framework and language, which in turn creates the basis for a shared sense of community.

TPW is officially cause-agnostic and so we focus on the process, the ‘how to’ of philanthropy. We give people access, knowledge, resources and lots of connections. We hold the space for peers to influence their fellow peers.

Our work is underpinned by our values: we are open and collaborative, promote transparency and action-oriented mindsets and we have a strong focus on equity and justice.

We really want people to move from education to action and collaboration.

How does this benefit philanthropists?

Marie-Louise: There are so many things members get from being part of TPW: education, connections, community. There is huge value in the peer to peer influencing – the ability to sit down with peers who have trodden this path before them. There’s a lot more complexity than people first realise.

New philanthropists often don’t know how to navigate the sector, are concerned they are not having enough impact and consequently some lack the confidence to move forward.

Many report feeling a huge responsibility to achieve immediate impact and that can sometimes get in the way of giving:  we sometimes hear people say: “We’ve set up a Foundation but we haven’t made a grant yet”.

We provide a safe space where they can ask anything: What are the questions I should be asking? How do I do due diligence? How do I do a field scan? How should I consider risk?  They build their knowledge, their tools, their approaches and confidence. We talk a lot about root causes, so they really understand how best to effect change at a wider systemic level.

We’ve had members who have gone on to set up their own organisations, or a co-funding arrangement or collaboration.

We can’t attribute this solely to TPW but we believe our role in holding a trusted space plays a vital part in accelerating their philanthropy and its outcomes, and there is no other community or convening space for philanthropists like it.

Another value of the community is that it is two-way. You’re coming not only to learn but also to give back, through mentorship, thought leadership, or sharing learning, failures and best practice. We encourage members to think beyond their own giving to their influence on the wider sector and how they can push things forward.

And the benefit of connecting with peers goes far beyond discussing philanthropy. It could be talking about family dynamics or prenuptial agreements.

Our community is a safe space for people to come together who are facing a lot of the same challenges such as the responsibility of stewarding wealth, understanding where their wealth came from and what that means today.

What differences do you see when supporting younger wealth holders?

Marie-Louise: In the past people felt that it was their wealth to decide what to do with and when and how to hand down.

Increasingly we’re hearing that the next generation see themselves as stewarding money that is not theirs. Younger philanthropists are more interested in changing the system and they apply different lenses – justice, climate, racial equity – rather than focus on a single issue.

We’ve also seen a shift to leading with impact.

This could mean extending their philanthropy to include activism, giving that is non-financial e.g. time, and taking a total portfolio approach. This changes the intention from “How do I do the best philanthropy? to “How do I get the greatest impact?”

A lot has changed in my eight years with TPW.

Members are now more open to the value of influencing one another and see that as part of their responsibility in driving more rapid change. They are looking to the community to share opportunities, to ask for ideas of what to fund, and to make connections.

They aren’t afraid to challenge one another and certainly hold one another to account. The culture of money as a taboo topic remains something of a limitation: our community builds trust and breaks down the entirely private nature of discussing finance.

Increasingly members are thinking about what their role – and the role of philanthropy – is in society, beyond what their own strategic interventions might be, and how to find the levers for change.

Marie-Louise Gourlay is Managing Director of Europe at The Philanthropy Workshop.

Emma Beeston

Emma Beeston

Independent Philanthropy Advisor

Emma Beeston is an independent Philanthropy Advisor supporting individuals and families with their giving.

Her book on Advising Philanthropists (Co-authored with Beth Breeze) is out now.

www.emmabeeston.co.uk

Where next?

The Philanthropy Ecosystem: Private Client Advisors

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Most philanthropists will have other advisors in place before they seek help with their philanthropy. These private client advisors may include wealth managers, accountants, lawyers, financial planners, and tax advisors.

The degree to which they cover philanthropy will vary as it is not the primary focus of their work. Yet they are well placed to raise the topic of giving and to help with certain aspects, such as advising on giving vehicles, as well as referring their clients to philanthropy advisors and others in the philanthropy support ecosystem.

George King is a leading wealth manager who embeds philanthropy into his work. In his role as Senior Wealth Manager at MASECO Private Wealth, he provides investment management, financial planning and financial advice to high-net-worth individuals.

Alongside this, George is on a mission to see philanthropy advice included in the wealth management proposition. As a Trustee at Philanthropy Impact, he seeks to promote philanthropy and trains wealth managers and other private client advisors.

Private client advisors

George King
Senior Wealth Manager
MASECO Private Wealth

Tell us more about the work you do

George:

My day job is directly supporting clients, most of whom have a transatlantic connection. My conversations include questions and explorations around aligning their values with their capital. This includes philanthropy alongside ESG and sustainable investing. I came to this work when setting up the Royal Bank of Canada’s wealth management offer in the UK. I wanted to infuse values and philanthropy advice in our work both as a differentiator in the market and because I believe you are not a competent or complete wealth manager if you’re not able to have these conversations. You don’t talk with clients about leaving an inheritance to their children without raising the issue of taxes. Similarly, when you talk to your clients about what money is for and what they care about, this has to include philanthropy.

Alongside my core work, I am involved in initiatives that promote the values-aligned allocation of capital. I view my role as a positive catalyst. However, I don’t consider myself as a philanthropy advisor. I am involved with ascertaining values, exploring what my clients want to accomplish through their philanthropy, helping them think through the options such as giving in their lifetime or after death, supporting local causes or systemic change. I don’t help with the last mile of the decision process – finding the specific entity to give to – so for this part I connect them with specialist philanthropy advisors.

How does your work help philanthropists?

George:

It is hard to quantify the value of this work but for people where it really matters, it matters a lot. For example, I have one client who did not set out to be rich, they just ended up in a job that meant they earned millions.

They now have more money than they can ever need in their lifetime and their kids are embarrassed by this wealth. I am helping them think through what money means to them and what it is for.

The value in this relationship is not in the discussion about the investment transactions (though that is fine too), it is in the discussion about their relationship with their wealth. The client sees that someone hears them, understands what they care about, and can help them advance their values.

For others, they are not in a position to think about moving from a traditional approach to investing right now. However, they value knowing that when they are ready there is someone there who can help them.

What should philanthropists expect from their advisors?

George:

It will vary for different types of advisors as it depends on the nature of the relationship. For example, lawyers rarely have ongoing contact with their clients; their work is usually more transactional. Wealth managers have much more of an opportunity to talk about philanthropy as we have the frequency of contact over several years that means relationships evolve and deepen.

It is easier for us to talk about what matters to our clients and what they are passionately interested in. And we have lots of time to do so because we do not bill for our time. However, any private client advisor should know enough about the philanthropy ecosystem to help their client.

They should be able to raise the issue of philanthropy in a helpful and thoughtful way and, where there is a need or an interest, plug their client into the relevant resources. These conversations should be initiated by the advisors – you don’t wait for a client to ask if there is a tax consequence or if they are taking enough or too much risk.

So it is the job of the advisor to put philanthropy on the table in a non-judgmental way. For example, is this something you are thinking about? Is this something you’ve done before? Is this something you want to learn more about now or in the future? Wealth owners should expect – and are increasingly looking for – advisors with knowledge and competence in values-related issues including philanthropy.

Emma Beeston

Emma Beeston

Independent Philanthropy Advisor

Emma Beeston is an independent Philanthropy Advisor supporting individuals and families with their giving.

Her book on Advising Philanthropists (Co-authored with Beth Breeze) is out now.

www.emmabeeston.co.uk

The Philanthropy Ecosystem: Thinkers, researchers, academics

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Philanthropy can look very simple – a case of deciding who to give some money to. However, one or two steps into the journey the complexity reveals itself.

There is an overwhelming array of options to choose between and different approaches to take.

Each decision involves difficult choices: is it better to respond to a crisis or tackle the root causes of a problem?

How do you judge whether an intervention will be effective? Questions go beyond the practical to the fundamental: should you fund something which you think should be covered by taxes? Should your decisions be led by need rather than your own interests? This is where the thinkers can help.

There are researchers looking at topics including giving trends, donor motivation and measuring impact; think tanks and thought leaders are influencing policymakers and providing opinions and publishing books on what ‘better’ giving looks like.

One of these thinkers is Rhodri Davies. Rhodri has set up the new website and resource, Why Philanthropy Matters that pulls together his writing and podcasts. He is a Philanthropy Expert-in-residence with the Pears Foundation where he acts as a sounding board on philanthropy issues as well as a resource for the organisations funded by the Foundation. He is also a Research Fellow at the University of Kent’s Centre for Philanthropy, where he carries out research and helps teach on the Masters course in Philanthropic Studies. Rhodri describes his role as thinking and writing about philanthropy.

In this interview, he explains how this brings value to philanthropists themselves.

The thinkers – researchers, academics, think tanks, thought leaders

Rhodri Davies
Why Philanthropy Matters

Rhodri has written two books:
For Public Good by Private Means

What is Philanthropy For?

How did you end up as a philanthropy thinker?

Rhodri:

I originally wanted to be an academic and started out in philosophy before realising I wanted my research to be focused in the real world. By a series of happy accidents, I ended up on a research project where I interviewed philanthropists. I got to find out what made them tick and found it fascinating.
I’ve gone further down that rabbit hole ever since.

Tell us more about the work you do?

Rhodri:

I sit between academic study and practice. I step back from practice to show how philanthropy fits into a broader context but I don’t step back so far that my thinking is not relevant to practitioners. Philanthropy can easily be seen as a niche topic that sits in a corner of the charity sector. My aim is to get conversations about philanthropy to a wider audience. By framing it in the right way people can see that it is relevant to what they do and are thinking about. Take for example the relationship between charity and justice. It can sound theoretical, but it plays out in everyday lives such as philanthropists funding the distribution of vaccines. People recognise giving to support vaccine distribution as a good thing but they are also uncomfortable that it is necessary for philanthropy to step in to do this when they think the state should provide vaccines.

How does your work help philanthropists?

Rhodri:

My work helps in three main ways:

1. Practical
Those getting on and doing philanthropy are busy and rarely have a chance to stop and think about what they do, where it comes from and how it touches on fundamental questions about the nature of humanity and what we want society to look like. On a practical basis, I can do some of the leg work and then share what is interesting.

2. Reassuring
It can feel a bit lonely as a donor or someone running a foundation. It is reassuring to know that not only are lots of people in the world right now going through the same things but also that historical figures have also grappled with the same challenges. I hope philanthropists take strength from knowing they are not alone.

3. Enriching
There is so much knowledge out there to draw on and most trends in philanthropy have a historical precedent. My hope is that my work enriches people’s understanding of philanthropy – it’s history, where it sits in current debates and where it might go in the future.

What do you find challenging?

Rhodri: When you recognise that philanthropy moves in cycles you realise that nothing is clear cut. I do have my own views on how philanthropy at its best should look and work, but I also don’t think my view is the final word because there are perfectly valid alternatives. It can be tricky to stay in the middle and try to be balanced and nuanced. And there are some issues such as climate change or racial justice where the challenges are even greater, because in attempting to be even-handed you risk giving legitimacy to points of view that many would see as actively distasteful. Wherever possible though, I want to hold that middle space which allows people who might not agree with each other to think through and discuss issues and work together, because ultimately, they share the same ambition of wanting philanthropy to do good in the world.

Emma Beeston

Emma Beeston

Independent Philanthropy Advisor

Emma Beeston is an independent Philanthropy Advisor supporting individuals and families with their giving.

Her book on Advising Philanthropists (Co-authored with Beth Breeze) is out now.

www.emmabeeston.co.uk

The Philanthropy Ecosystem: What is a philanthropy advisor and what do they do?

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We are delighted to introduce the first article of our brand new Philanthropy Ecosystem Series, designed to break the ‘isolation tank’ syndrome that philanthropists can sometimes find themselves in. The good news is they are not alone and an evolving ecosystem of support exists to help them.

In this series, we will introduce and interview some of the incredible individuals and organisations that are here to help and support all potential and existing philanthropists. We are grateful to Emma Beeston, herself a Philanthropy Advisor, for conducting these real-world interviews on behalf of Beacon.

In this first article, we will be discussing what a philanthropy advisor is and what they do in the company of Lizzy Steinhart, a Philanthropy Advisor for the multi-family office LCM Family Limited. For any philanthropists trying to work out how best to make a difference in the world, the great news is that advisors like Lizzy will help them reach their goals.

What Is a Philanthropy Advisor And What Do They Do?

The role of a Philanthropy Advisor

A Philanthropy Advisor is a philanthropist’s essential guide through the myriad of choices you will make as you move from being a generally charitable individual to becoming an intentional giver. They act as a critical friend who is there to help you when it comes to deciding your philanthropic goals as well as bringing their sector expertise to inform (and sometimes challenge) your giving choices. Philanthropy Advisors can be found in a range of settings: banks, family offices, and wealth management firms as well as being independent consultants and advisory practitioners.

Many Philanthropy Advisors will be generalists who are able to help you with any aspect of what you want to achieve from your giving. Some Philanthropy Advisors specialise in a particular cause area such as the environment or a particular philanthropic approach such as strategic philanthropy, or particular aspects such as those involving the family and issues that can arise there.

A Philanthropy Advisor is not yet a well-known professional role. To demonstrate what they do we interviewed Lizzy Steinhart, a Philanthropy Advisor for the multi-family office LCM Family Limited. Lizzy has a background in the charity and grant-making sectors and joined the firm to set up their philanthropy service. Her purpose is to support individuals and families in turning their generosity into thoughtful and planned giving. Her typical day demonstrates the variety of areas that philanthropy advisors can help with such as liaising with tax advisors for a client wanting to set up a donor-advised fund conducting due diligence assessments and even accompanying a client on their project visits.

Some of Lizzys’ clients may come up with a firm idea that she will then help to make sure they have considered a broader marketplace than the charities they may already be aware of. Other clients of hers may come to her with a blank sheet of paper which means that Lizzy can work with them for several months or even over years to help them decide where they want their money to go and what the most effective and efficient timing of donations for both the client and the charities involved would be.

What Is a Philanthropy Advisor And What Do They Do?

Elizabeth Steinhart
Philanthropy Advisor
www.lcmfamily.co.uk

What benefits does a Philanthropy Advisor bring?

Lizzy:

It is hard for a philanthropist to pick up the phone and say “I may or may not be interested in giving you some money”. Philanthropy advisors are really useful intermediaries that can facilitate connections and conversations to benefit both parties as they are able to make these conversations deeper, clearer and more strategic.

Advisors also enable broader conversations about the purpose of wealth across families. This can help the wealth creator to express their values at the same time as listening, inspiring and guiding the future inheritors in financial literacy and charitable giving. This can prevent the issues that arise when family members only find out at death that someone has given lots of money away to charity. More importantly, it enables children and grandchildren to be incredibly proud of what their family has achieved.

Ideally, you are helping your client to become confident and self-sufficient to ask charities the right questions about causes and projects that they may want to invest in. As well as making introductions and guiding what good due diligence of a charity should look like, I can steer them in how to research a specialist cause or ‘ marketplace’ of charities working within a specific field and also support them in conducting meetings with charities.

They can then go off and follow that particular charity relationship themselves, often that will last many years. The majority of my clients are very intelligent people with fabulous careers. They are coming to this with huge intellect, curiosity and compassion. It’s about facilitating their onward journey without me.

What Is a Philanthropy Advisor And What Do They Do?

What should philanthropists look for in an advisor?

Lizzy:

This brings us back to our question of what is a philanthropy advisor. Look at their career path, their professional networks and their previous experience and knowledge of the charitable sector. There are plenty of good people out there so talk to others and get personal recommendations.

What challenges do you face in this role?

Lizzy:

Philanthropy is so meaningful and enjoyable that I find it frustrating that it is not part of all conversations about wealth across private clients‘ ‘financial services’. Clients don’t often know the added value they, their families and charities will gain from investing in some professional philanthropy advice. Too many wealthy individuals still make significant ad hoc, spontaneous donations to causes that they care about, rather than using their day-to-day business acumen to research, take advice and ‘invest’ in that cause to maximise their own knowledge, the terms, value and impact of the gift.

What do you like most about your role?

Lizzy:

I love the breadth of the individuals I get to work with – from the wealthy clients wanting to make a socially conscious impact with their money, to meeting with incredibly dedicated charity staff, volunteers, and of course, the end beneficiaries of funding – many of whom have humbling and inspirational stories to tell. It is so rewarding to take a client on their giving journey and see this often open up a new enriching chapter for them and their families.

Emma Beeston

Emma Beeston

Independent Philanthropy Advisor

Emma Beeston is an independent Philanthropy Advisor supporting individuals and families with their giving.

Her book on Advising Philanthropists (Co-authored with Beth Breeze) is out now.

www.emmabeeston.co.uk

Where are the women in philanthropy?

by

Lucy Hart writes for Beacon Collaborative about the current level of philanthropic funding for women and women-facing initiatives and asks what we can do to increase it.

“Control F”

In May, the 2022 Sunday Times Giving List was published. As a nonprofit consultant, this is a pretty handy one-stop guide for an overview of who is giving and where in the UK. A quick “control F” of “gender” and “women” throws back one result for “gender equality” (thank you, Sir Chris Hohn) and for “women”, three.

Out of 120. Really? Really?

Of course, there’s a caveat: women’s issues and gender both come under many other philanthropic giving areas, like education, health and so forth. Understand me: I hasten to suggest only four donors give to these two causes. But alarm bells indubitably ring.

I am currently re-reading Can We All Be Feminists?  by June Eric-Udorie. In it she writes: 

“to those women with privilege, this is what we need from you: Organise with us, but let us be the authority on our own experiences and in our activism. Don’t speak for us – we can speak for ourselves”. 

Firstly, I highly recommend this book as a starting point to verse yourself with the challenges facing, and debates within, feminism today. And secondly, acknowledge my position of privilege.

For those unfamiliar with the term intersectionality, it’s Kimberle Crenshaw’s “attempt to make feminism, anti-racist activism, and anti-discrimination law do what I thought they should – highlight the multiple avenues through which racial and gender oppression were experienced so that the problems would be easier to discuss and understand”.

In other words, Western feminism as many of us have known it, has too long been centred on the white, middle-class experience and it’s a truth we must live by and correct. 

With this in mind: I am overwhelmed by the cacophony of voices speaking on “women’s issues”, and yet: where are the funds?

Back in August 2021 I gave my two cents on my hopes for the future of philanthropy in Alliance Magazine’s 25th anniversary edition. In it I referred to the 2020 The Women and Girls Index figure showing that just 1.6 per cent of philanthropic giving in the US goes to women and girls’ organisations.

So, what are we going to do about it?

And here lies feminist philanthropy. A philanthropic form that “encourages individuals and corporations to think more deeply not about who they donate to, but why they’re donating”. By adopting a feminist lens, philanthropy might look towards the margins and, for that matter, be far more transformative.

I deeply admire the work of Global Fund for Women. They’re a feminist fund with an intersectional lens. Back in 1987, four bold women: Anne Firth Murray, Frances Kissling, Laura Lederer and Nita Barrow were frustrated by a lack of interest in funding women’s human rights, so they founded an organisation to fund grass-roots women-led movements directly. 

As a feminist funder, they actively shift the power to historically marginalized communities including women, girls, and gender non-conforming people. Flexible funding and resources move directly into the hands of feminist activists who know exactly how to use it. 

As a non-profit consultant who works to build the capability, capacity and coherence of socially-focused organisations, it would be remiss not to say that we can help. The funders are out there, but finding the right ones? That’s the challenge. Often, funds are poured into issues “in vogue”, but let us not forget: women do comprise half the human race.

Our clients fight every day against poverty, racism, violence, environmental injustice, lack of education, misinformation and the dismantling of quality journalism, and encroachments on democracy. I would love to see more organisations tackling gender and women’s issues walk through our door. So, I say, come on in and let’s talk.

Afterword: Is change coming?

In November 2020, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the largest philanthropic organization in the world, appointed their first-ever President of Gender Equality, Anita Zaidi. She leads the Foundation’s efforts to achieve gender equality by integrating gender across the Foundation’s global work. If such an influential funder has taken this step, is change coming?

lucy hart

Lucy Hart

Coordinator of Research and Capacity-Building

Lucy Hart is the Coordinator of Research and Capacity-Building at The Athena Advisors, a nonprofit consulting firm driven by a belief in social justice. She holds an MSc in Women, Peace and Security from the London School of Economics. For a no-obligation conversation on the challenges your nonprofit is facing, you can reach Lucy at lucy.hart@theathenaadvisors.com.