There are many different pathways to giving, and there is no single image of what a philanthropist looks like.
Strategy and decision making are a crucial part of giving. We speak to philanthropists of all types about the highs and lows they faced on their journeys.
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In 2007, Sir Alec Reed, founder of one of the UK’s best known recruitment brands, REED, saw a huge gap in the philanthropic and giving landscape: the opportunity for small, medium and large donors to join together to meet a charity’s needs for a specific campaign. From this realisation, Sir Alec has spent more than a decade to make giving easier for all kinds of donors.
It’s not often you hear businesses claim that they want to be copied and want competition, but this is exactly the position that family-owned private bank C. Hoare & Co. took in 2016 when it launched Snowball.
As an entrepreneur, social investor and philanthropist, Paul Barry Walsh recognises that different forms of capital need to work in tandem – especially in these unprecedented times. It is so easy to criticise others, but perhaps the question we should ask ourselves is what are we doing?
For James Chen, philanthropy is about backing the moon-shot ideas – funding those special projects or programmes that could change lives, or even change the world as we know it.
For Pauline De Souza direct engagement with independent artists and arts institutions is the key to successful philanthropy. For her, a successful result is an arts project that stimulates debate.
Grant Gordon says he had a light bulb moment: on a webinar to discuss philanthropy’s response to COVID-19 the discussion centred around three phases of response – relief, recovery, resilience. He realised that many agencies were piling in to the relief effort, but what about the longer term?
With a huge funding gap looming for the non-profit sector, Shalni Arora took the view that there are organisations we simply cannot afford to lose as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Laura believes passionately that philanthropists and foundations have a duty to ensure they are doing philanthropy well, having learnt over the years that giving money away is easy but measuring impact is extremely difficult.
For Ric Lewis, education is the holy grail for unlocking potential and setting young people on a path to bigger and better. He believes if one person receives the quality education that they deserve there is a multiplying effect on their family and friends and therefore any support given to one person has a wider and greater effect. By using his philanthropic capital in this way Lewis is ensuring that he reaches as many people as possible.
The Beacon Collaborative