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Covid

The Beacon Forum & the vitality of collaboration.

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In Beacon’s first face-to-face event since the pandemic, philanthropists identified that collaboration was key to supporting the Covid-19 recovery. Some observed a greater movement towards collaboration during the last 18 months, while others felt good intentions had not manifested in donor practice.

We reflect on the Forum to identify why collaboration emerged as the key theme and how the sector can support a drive towards more teamwork.

In the Beacon Forum’s introductory speech, Danny Kruger (MP for Devizes and Parliamentary Private Secretary of the government’s newly formed Department for Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities) spoke of the need for philanthropists and the state to align towards a common mission of supporting left-behind communities.

Collaborative sentiment was further echoed by Dr Beth Breeze (Director of the Centre for Philanthropy and author of In Defence of Philanthropy). Beth highlighted that we must work together to challenge negative narratives around high-net-worth charitable giving.

The real ode to collaboration, though, emerged during the day’s 26 roundtables, addressing 13 topics from across the breadth and depth of the philanthropic sector.

Despite the existence of a specific roundtable on collaboration, the theme ended up permeating a variety of discussions – a nod to its increasing importance in philanthropic circles.

Delegates were effusive in their praise for the resource-pooling, co-funding, best practice-sharing and mentoring which had emerged during the pandemic. Many suggested ways for building on this, including whether inspiring collaboration around geographic regions (rather than only causes) may help in the drive to support local giving.

Others highlighted the essential role that collaboration between grant-makers and beneficiaries had played in providing agency to local communities; it was suggested that donors may feel more comfortable in providing unrestricted funding if they spent more time working alongside those who benefit from their grants.

Cooperation was not limited to donor partnerships, either – the importance of teamwork between sector organisations also shone through. Indeed, conversations highlighted that no less than three philanthropic commitments on climate change, as well as a Commission on unlocking the benefits of individual impact investing, had emerged as a direct result of coalitions between charities, social enterprises and member networks.

Beyond infrastructural developments, Forum delegates opened-up about their increasing desire to engage with peers – many highlighting that this was the first peer-to-peer philanthropic event they had been involved in since before Covid.

As sector organisations, we need to provide platforms for donors to meet, interact, and share their journeys with one another. This will remove blockers to philanthropic giving and open the valve for more private money to flow into the charity sector. It is also essential that we communicate with one another more in our own workflows, accelerating our respective missions to remove impediments to the growth of philanthropy in the UK.

Philanthropy evidently flourishes when it is a team-sport, not a solo endeavour. The desire for greater collaboration can be seen from all sides of the landscape. But desire without action is useless. We urgently need to find mechanisms that connect philanthropists to one another and to those seeking to support them. The time for action is now.

Beacon Forum: Keynote Speeches

  • Danny Kruger MBE, Member of Parliament for Devizes; Parliamentary Private Secretary for the Department of Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities; author of ‘Levelling-Up Our Communities.’
    • Danny spoke about the true value of philanthropy and the role he believes government can play in helping to unlock it, especially in left-behind communities. View speech (starts at 11:06).
  • Dr Beth Breeze, Director of the Centre for Strategic Philanthropy at the University of Kent; author of ‘In Defence of Philanthropy.’
    • Beth challenged us to consider the criticisms of philanthropy, the arguments against them, and how we can play an active role in changing the narrative. View speech.
  • Sir Paul Collier CBE, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government; Director of the International Growth Centre, and the ESRC research network, Social Macroeconomics.
    • Sir Paul’s address implored philanthropists “don’t blunder in,” instead asking us to realise how thoughtful and considered giving can play an essential role in rejuvenating broken places. View speech.

Beacon Forum: ‘Challenge Talks’

Thank you

We remain incredibly grateful to the generosity of our event sponsors – Barclays Private Bank, City Bridge Trust, EQ Investors, I.G. Advisors and Schroders – for making this event possible. Thanks also to our media partners Alliance Magazine, event management organisers Owen James and catering partners The Clink Charity.

We would like to extend our appreciation to all delegates, speakers and moderators for your attendance and enthusiasm in bringing the day to life.

If you have ideas on taking any of these discussions further and advancing philanthropy for the public good, please feel free to email us at info@thinkNPC.org

beacon forum sponsors

The campaign allowing anyone to become a vaccine philanthropist

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gogiveone

The campaign allowing anyone to become a vaccine philanthropist

Philanthropy has been – and is continuing to be – an integral part of the Covid recovery. Ultra wealthy individuals have single handedly contributed billions in response to the pandemic. We have also seen increases in UK millionaire giving over the last 12 months.

However, until now the infrastructure needed to engage the vast numbers of people at average wealth levels has not existed.  A new initiative created by the WHO Foundation is seeking to address this through a campaign encouraging everyone to buy vaccines for those in lower-income countries, helping to get the world immunised. We learn how the Go Give One campaign is making vaccine philanthropy accessible.

– by Sarah Lewis and Alex Reid.

The world held its breath last week to see what the G7 would do to help end the pandemic. Unfortunately, G7 leaders didn’t do enough. Amidst the sound bites and lofty talk of future commitments, the actions required now to get vaccines to people all over the world fell short – the funding was too small, dose sharing too slow. 

Speaking earlier in the year at the Rome Global Health Summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel had raised the question around leadership to ending the pandemic and said, “if not us, then who?”

Well, we believe the answer is “everyone, everywhere”. When it comes to Covid-19, we’re all on the same team. Go Give One was created by the WHO Foundation so that people-powered vaccines could pave the way for an end to this pandemic. With a simple act of donating £4, individuals can cover the cost of a Covid-19 vaccine, helping the world and themselves be free from the virus. The goal is for 50 million people to join the campaign this year. 

In less than two months since launch, Go Give One has raised over $7M USD, helping to buy over 1.4 million new vaccines. The total donations include $1.5M from individual donors with 27% from British givers. Donors were able to leverage company matches, including the challenge set by a coalition of global businesses including Salesforce, Workday, PagerDuty and Russell Reynolds, as well as a fundraising drive by Facebook. The money raised goes to Gavi COVAX AMC – the international finance facility which buys vaccines for the world, prioritising those who need them the most in countries who can’t afford them.

gogiveonescale

Flexible giving options and Match Funding schemes are two features GoGiveOne is using.

In addition to support from global companies, Go Give One partners with local charities and businesses to make the campaign locally driven and locally accountable. This was the impetus behind the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) coming on board as the UK arm of the campaign, helping to ensure funds raised can leverage Gift Aid in the UK. As a locally trusted organization, CAF brings credibility to the campaign and a stamp of approval for donors, large and small. We hope to follow this example across many countries. 

The connection between local and global is what sets this campaign apart. Both of us spent many years working at global organizations, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Standard Chartered and Xynteo, where we have seen first-hand the power of global campaigns: the coming together of countries and organisations around the Sustainable Development Goals is a great example of what can be done when we focus on our common humanity.

The sense of global solidarity is often a driver of community action by people of faith, something that inspired us both in our recent work with the Vatican Covid-19 Commission. And many people are increasingly drawn to communities outside their national borders that provide a politically neutral common ground, for example in global gamer communities who have raised millions of pounds on platforms like Twitch. 

We’ve also seen the pitfalls of global initiatives that are disconnected from local realities. With experience in our own communities we know that without an understanding of local contexts, campaigns more often than not fail. Because, as Covid has shown us in stark reality over the past year and a half, our experiences are often hyper local, and deeply personal. Go Give One aims to connect with people on their own terms and give them the chance to act in simple ways to free themselves, their colleagues, and their communities, from Covid-19. It is a local act with a global solution. We believe this is what this moment calls for and we hope that the leaders of the G-7 and beyond will take note.

We are attempting to create the foundations for a new approach to philanthropy, an approach which can also help us to tackle other global challenges like climate change and gender equality. An approach that invites everyone – no matter where they live and work in the world – to play their part in the solution. After all, we’re all on the same team. We invite you to Go Give One and join us on our journey.

Go Give One is currently looking for funders, partners and big thinkers who share their core values to help them respond to the immediate challenge of Covid-19. Get in touch with Alex and Sarah here to learn more > alex@reidstrat.com // sarah@reidstrat.com

www.gogiveone.org

2020 In Review: What can we learn from the philanthropy sector’s COVID response?

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philanthropy sector

 

2020 In Review: What can we learn from the philanthropy sector’s COVID response?

“2020 has been the most important year for philanthropy in recent times.” – Matthew Bowcock

Throughout 2020, hundreds of millions of pounds in grants have been distributed to non-profit organisations throughout the UK. The purpose, to support those that found themselves on the frontline of the country’s response. 

With the funding sector stretched to its limits, those in the philanthropy sector found new paths through collaboration.

 

The wake-up call

Shortly before COVID hit, New Philanthropy Capital surveyed over 300 charities to get their perspectives on the state of the charity sector, a follow-up to its 2017 research covering the same topic.

‘State of the Sector’ – the resulting report – served as a timely exploration of the non-profit sector’s strengths and weaknesses. NPC’s findings included:

  • Widespread agreement that public trust in the charity sector had fallen, with just 5% of leaders believing it had not.
  • Overconfidence among charities in their ability to use data to evaluate their work.
  • Concerns that there was a lack of flexible core funding for charities.

These proved to be critical weaknesses when COVID hit. The response demanded agile solutions developed through unprecedented levels of collaboration across the funding sector. 

In March, when the UK went into lockdown, a decision was taken by the members of our Organisations’ Council to increase the frequency of meetings from quarterly to monthly. This enabled the philanthropy sector keep pace with a fast-moving landscape. It provided a forum for philanthropists, funders, wealth advisers and policy makers to keep in touch on critical developments.

Through this and other fora, the philanthropy sector and national charities swiftly began to work together to share knowledge. They identified what was happening on the frontline and analysed how best to get funding where it was urgently needed.

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Central to the funding efforts:

Beyond these alliances, Beacon undertook to provide weekly updates on how COVID was challenging a variety of sectors. The ‘COVID Guide’ project – spotlighting Women & Girls, Racial Justice, the Environment, Data and more – recognised the work of myriad organisations, and sought “to help donors decide on how to give most effectively” during the crisis’ early months.

 

A shift to better data

In parallel, the philanthropy sector switched gears to support donors, philanthropists and funders with better data to pinpoint emerging needs.

New Philanthropy Capital launched a project to open up government administrative data to the social sector. Assisted by Health Foundation, Turn2us and Buttle UK, NPC built an interactive data dashboard helping charities and funders identify areas at greater risk of coronavirus and assess the extent of charitable provision in those areas.

The Association of Charitable Foundations set in motion their Funders Collaborative Hub, working with Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Lloyds Bank Foundation. Guided by principles of trust, transparency and co-creation, the Hub collated the knowledge, skills and resources of the philanthropy sector.

Philanthropy Impact kept the wealth advisory community informed and initiated a Technology and Data Standards working group to support philanthropy platform providers to meet the needs of donors, philanthropists and advisers.

 

Coordinated communications

‘A joint letter to philanthropists’, published in the Financial Times, called on philanthropists “to think broadly, be clear and straightforward in their giving, and encourage [the] charities they fund to be open about where the challenges are.”

The Institute of Fundraising, Charity Finance Group and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations worked with philanthropists and community leaders to promote the #EveryDayCounts campaign, asking for government intervention in both the charity and philanthropy sectors. The campaign received backing from over 236 MPs and Peers.

It emerged that a coherent message was needed to encourage existing and new donors to commit to giving throughout COVID. Subsequently, the Organisations’ Council set up a Strategic Communications Sub-Group – a platform to coordinate messaging and amplify each other’s work.

Led by the work undertaken by the London Community Response and Charities Aid Foundation, the philanthropy sector adopted the mantra ‘Survive, Adapt, Thrive’, describing the different phases of funding that would be needed to support charitable organisations through the pandemic and beyond. 

The message – that charities need long-term funding to recover – resonated with wealth holders looking to target their funding most effectively.

To track funding patterns among the high-net-worth community in the UK, Beacon and Savanta launched quarterly pulse surveying in June. The quarterly surveys asked a cohort of 300-500 wealthy individuals about their philanthropic activity. Comparing their planned and actual giving, we were able to see which sections of the wealthy population were responding most. Around a quarter of wealth holders have consistently donated more than planned during COVID, a net increase overall.

As the year draws to a close, the £20 million success of this year’s The Big Give’s Christmas Challenge highlights the ongoing need of charitable organisations for philanthropic champions and wider funding supporters.

 

Questions for the future

There are two questions that emerge from this crisis for 2021. First, what can we learn from 2020 that will strengthen civil society in the future? Second, how can we sustain the increased engagement from wealthy individuals and avoid funding fatigue? 

This first question is already being explored, by the Law Family Commission on Civil Society asking how to unleash the full potential of civil society in the UK. And by DCMS’s follow up to MP Danny Kruger’s report, Levelling Up Our Communities.

On the second question, we continue to see collaborative initiatives breaching new territory even 9 months after the first lockdown. Big Society Capital and Schroders, for example, teaming up this week to launch the World’s first listed social impact investment fund.

2020 put the philanthropy sector through its paces. The same effort will be required again in 2021. This time, to tackle the systemic weaknesses in civil society that the crisis laid bare. 

Yet, we now know the philanthropy sector can be stronger than the sum of its parts. New relationships have been forged through the crisis along with agile methods for effective, streamlined collaboration. This has been a critical year for philanthropy and provides a foundation for ensuring philanthropists are part of future transitions.

What kind of society do we want to build? One which opens up to philanthropy and allows people to be generous.

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What kind of society do we want to build? One which opens up to philanthropy and allows people to be generous.

Helen Bowcock PhD OBE DL – www.hazelhursttrust.org and www.aakss.org.uk

Article originally published in the Philanthropy Impact Magazine, Nov 2020 Issue

 

With the current challenges in charity funding, being open to generosity in different forms may prove a better investment than taking a narrow view. The often misunderstood concept of philanthropy needs to be interpreted in an inclusive way as an open system which relies upon people of very varied financial means.

The COVID crisis should provide evidence of why philanthropy matters and why we need to take it more seriously than ever before in a society open to generosity. One cause for optimism during these bleakest of times has been a voluntary spirit and desire to help others, which emerged right from the start of the lockdown. Admonished to stay at home and protect the NHS, many instead found ways to help other human beings rather than stay still, immobilised by public mandate.

For example, in my own town, a group of residents — many already affiliated with local charities — had organised themselves into a help force before the NHS issued its appeal for volunteers. When the national programme proved ineffective in satisfying the demand to give time, they continued as before to deliver shopping, connect with people living alone and marshal support for the food bank. Some of them had experienced their own means of earning a living disappear abruptly but they still found the energy and motivation to be generous with their time and resources.

When choir practices came to an abrupt end, the leader of my choir persuaded members to make our own individual recordings of his harmonised version of Carol King’s You’ve Got A Friend and then, with help, worked night and day to synchronise 276 voices for release on YouTube. With the theme of isolation in mind, he canvassed opinion and selected the Women’s Aid Live Chat service as a destination for the donations we gave willingly in return for participating. And once the final recording was distributed within our own networks, the £10,000 target was rapidly exceeded and over £100,000 had been raised at the last count. The shared social experience of singing together had taken on a new and more meaningful nature.

Perhaps none of this sounds remarkable. Choirs often fundraise and many charities, including food banks, necessarily rely upon the conscience of local residents. This was, however, a remarkable time in which there were unprecedented constraints upon giving voluntarily, but people chose to overcome them and gave themselves permission to care for others.

If it was not abundantly clear already, then it should be clear now, that the state could not fulfil every need and this was particularly evident within the system of health. The desire for active participation in raising money to provide for others was perhaps best exemplified by Captain Tom who has raised over £30 million pounds even though his chosen cause was the NHS itself.

The charity in which I serve as chair of the trustee board has, for the first time, launched an emergency appeal which has far exceeded its initial target, attracting our largest single donation as well as multiple smaller gifts of very varying amounts. These donors can be assured that their chosen organisation, which delivers highly specialised pre-hospital emergency medicine, has continued to deliver a full service throughout the crisis when many other medical treatments were withdrawn.

As a self-governing charity, it was founded by local people who sought to fulfil a gap in medical provision when there was neither the political will nor budget to resource it from statutory funding. Guided by the principle embedded in British society since the mid-twentieth century — that medicine should be free at the point of delivery — the charity was enabled by the much older tradition of philanthropy.

So, in answering the question about the kind of society we want to see, it would seem appropriate to consider what the experience of the COVID crisis might teach us about the nature of philanthropy and generosity. The examples given so far demonstrate that, despite the most unusual constraints, people still find ways of taking action and of giving greater meaning and value to money through the addition of their time, skills and networks.

Perhaps one lesson from this crisis is that the so often misunderstood concept of philanthropy needs to be interpreted in an inclusive way, as an open system which relies upon people of very varied financial means. As Martial Paris of WISE-Philanthropy Advisors stated in the most recent Philanthropy Impact Magazine ‘You don’t need a fat wallet to be a philanthropist — philanthropy is everyone’s business’.

This matters for several reasons. If, as could so easily be interpreted from the media, philanthropy is assumed to be about extreme wealth, then this lets large segments of society off the hook. A quick glance at recent press coverage about philanthropists gives the impression of a rarefied world of ‘disruptive tech billionaires’ or of celebrity — a world beyond the reach of most. A report from The Beacon Collaborative found that even people who can be defined as ‘high net worth’ consider that they may not be quite rich enough to meet a perceived threshold to give away some of their wealth. We cannot afford the perception that this is a luxury market. Whilst those people with the highest levels of wealth should certainly be encouraged to give more, this does not mean that philanthropy and generosity is their exclusive domain.

The second reason that “philanthropy is everyone’s business” is that the COVID crisis has revealed a reserve of time and money that people are willing to give away, but their good will and commitment need to be maintained. There is probably significantly greater untapped potential and good reason for charities to treat everyone as potential donors. Early tentative interest in volunteering or a modest donation can often precede increasing support over the longer term, if met with appropriate stewardship. So often the motivation for trusteeship is to give something to society, regardless of personal financial means. With the current challenges for charity funding, being open to generosity in different forms may prove a better investment than taking a narrow view of philanthropy or assuming that paying trustees is somehow in the interests of the sector.

One further reason for a broad-minded view of philanthropy is that now, more than ever, we need to be very clear about its role, and government needs to be honest about where state provision starts and stops. There are significant areas of health and medical services delivered by charities, including hospices and air ambulances, and the extent of fundraising for NHS institutions is somewhat concealed by the illusion that our health system is funded entirely by the state. So let’s give credit where it is due and acknowledge the collective value of the many people who give time, money and networks, not because they are all very rich but because they believe in a cause. And let’s invite everyone to the party so that philanthropy becomes a normal part of life in a society in which generosity is appropriately acknowledged and respected.

 

HELEN BOWCOCK PHD OBE DL – TRUSTEE OF THE HAZELHURST TRUST & CHAIR OF AIR AMBULANCE KENT SURREY SUSSEX

 

 

Following an early career in information technology, Helen co-founded a software company specialising in advanced information security systems and served as a Director during a period of rapid growth and significant investment.

Following the sale of assets in the company, she co-founded The Hazelhurst Trust, a grant-making trust with a focus on education and research. She has written several reports making the case for philanthropy in the UK and was awarded an OBE for services to philanthropy in 2015. She grew up in the North East and is a graduate of Durham University. More recently she completed a PhD at the University of Kent and has served on the boards of several not-for-profit organisations in the South East, notably the University of Surrey and Air Ambulance Kent Surrey Sussex where she is Chair.

UK wealthy increasing giving in response to COVID-19 pandemic

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UK wealthy increasing giving in response to COVID-19 pandemic

In June this year, we commissioned Savanta to conduct quarterly research on the giving levels among the wealthy population in the UK. In part, this was a response to the COVID-19 pandemic to determine how British philanthropy was responding.

The first poll we were heartened to find 25% had given more than they had planned in the first three months of COVID-19 crisis and 19% gave less, suggesting a net increase in giving by UK millionaires during the first few weeks of the crisis. The research included 300 individuals with investable wealth >£1 million.

By September, the sense was growing that we were moving from immediate crisis to a sustained period of uncertainty. As the negative impact of this new normal began to unfold, threatening jobs and livelihoods, as well as health and wellbeing, we took a second look at giving by the UK’s millionaires to track how their patterns of giving are changing.

The most recent poll included 500 respondents and found, once again, that 26% gave more than planned in the previous quarter versus 18% who gave less.

These results suggest that a significant section of the UK’s wealthy population is continuing to support the non-profit sector through the COVID-19 pandemic above the level of their planned giving. This finding is borne out by the underlying giving levels being reported. In June, we found a median giving level of £200, with 25% having given more than £1,000 in the previous quarter.

In September, these figures have crept up to a median giving level of £410, with 35% having given more than £1,000. The increase in September was driven by a surge among those with investable wealth between £1 million – £5 million. The number in this group giving £1,000 – £5,000 during the quarter doubled from 10% to 20%.

Those giving gifts >£10,000 also almost doubled in this group from 5% to 9%. In parallel, we also asked philanthropists in the Beacon Collaborative network to report back on their levels of giving during the previous quarter. Among the small number of respondents, 70% had given more than they planned between June and September. The median level of giving was £11,000.

These results suggest that those at the core and on the fringes of British philanthropy are responding to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on wider society. As we continue to survey through the coming months, we will determine if this effort can be sustained and whether those who are currently sitting on the sidelines can be encouraged to do more.