By supporting writers and artists, we hope to ensure a rich and diverse cultural heritage for future generations

Philanthropists Sam and Rosie Berwick support the Early Career Bursaries for London Writers, a programme run by literature development agency Spread the Word. The programme, which is in its second year, supports three unagented, unpublished writers from underrepresented backgrounds and on a low income per year. The year the programme launched, Sam and Roise won the Achates Philanthropy Prize Individual Philanthropy Award. 

There are so many incredibly important causes and amazing people in the third sector that it’s very difficult to decide on where it’s best to try and help out.

As the years have gone by, Rosie and I have focused (not exclusively) on trying to help emerging artists get the time, space and mentoring that will hopefully help them to create the art that will make us who we are for generations and centuries to come.

Books, music and the other arts are a fundamental component of human identity, not an optional luxury. They offer insights and reflections on our shared experiences. And, particularly at this present time, where so many large donors are rightly concerned with huge macro issues such as pandemics, climate change and education, the creative arts can easily slip through the gaps.

Our aim is to give artists some breathing space to think and work

Thus, our focus is now on supporting writers and composers from diverse backgrounds, who are financially constrained and often lack the resources or environments conducive to creative work.

To create is not an easy thing; and it’s virtually impossible if you have to hold down a full-time job, look after a family, or learn how to live in a new environment. Our aim is to give these artists some breathing space to think and work, and some critical friends to help them on their journey. 

In this space, individuals like us can do a huge amount. As donors, we possess a unique capacity to embrace risk, supporting emerging talent and innovative projects that might not align with the conventional criteria favoured by larger organisations.

Governance in larger organisations is a critical function, but it can lead to consensus management and support for those at the least risky part of the spectrum. On the other hand, we report only to ourselves.

And although we want to make an impact and carefully evaluate the work we support, we are able to take risks and provide support where others might not. We hope that this will make sure more stories by incredible artists from marginalised communities are made and safeguard the art that we will treasure for many years to come.  

We felt it was more sensible to team up with an existing organisation

But, crucially, we can’t do this on our own. Instead of using the majority of our resources to create a structure, to find and support the right artists, we felt it was far more sensible to team up and leverage an existing organisation.

This approach ensures that resources are efficiently channelled directly to the artists, maximising the impact of each contribution.

By partnering with established organisations, philanthropists can enhance their support through grants, residencies, and workshops, directly empowering artists to pursue their creative pursuits without the burden of financial worry. 

In this context, we were extremely fortunate to team up with the charity Spread the Word to fund a new project.

Spread the Word is London’s literature development agency and has been running programmes for writers from underrepresented backgrounds for over twenty-five years. They run a mix of local community projects, as well as programmes to help writers get published, changing the range and breadth of stories we get to read and hear.

Based in Lewisham, South-East London, they run the Deptford Literature Festival and have an ambitious goal to establish Lewisham as the UK’s first Borough of Literature.

Working with their team we developed the Early Career Bursaries for London Writers on a low-income – a programme that supports three writers each year to develop their craft and focus on a writing project with a cash bursary and dedicated fund to support learning and development.  

To be a writer in the UK is to have one of the most elite jobs. Only very recently, one of the writers that Spread the Word was able to help has had an essay published, and it made us so happy and humble to think that our programme with them gave the writer the time, space and support to write such a beautiful piece.

By supporting such artists, we hope to ensure a rich and diverse cultural heritage for future generations.

For us, the success of the Early Career Bursaries so far underscores the importance of strategic individual giving. By supporting diverse artists to create and be full-time artists, we are helping to shape who we will be as human beings. 

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Recommended reading

• Spread the Word

Becky and Lauren Holmes are Trustees of the Helvellyn Foundation, an independent grant-making organisation which they founded in 2020  alongside their father, Bill Holmes.

Lauren works for a national employability charity, having previously been a teacher, and Becky is studying Ecology & Wildlife Conservation at Reading University.

Becky and Lauren’s vision is a world in which all young people have equal access to fulfilling opportunities and where all species are able to survive and thrive alongside human beings; visions that are being realised by charities they support such as The Prince’s Trust, the SHARK Trust and the African Wildlife Foundation.

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Quick facts

The causes

• Biodiversity
• Young people

The funding

• The Helvellyn Foundation, working with partner charities
• Individual giving

The takeaways

• Sharing ideas is important. You can get inspiration from some people and inspire others yourself.
• Do what you can now, then keep learning.
• Make philanthropy less of a taboo topic by talking about what you are doing.

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Young philanthropists as change makers

Q: What does “being a change maker” in philanthropy mean to you?

Becky: For me, a changemaker in philanthropy is someone willing to push boundaries and seek out better ways to do things, and so they might take on an active role in helping charities to form more impactful strategies. However, not all charities need their philanthropists to be changemakers and instead might just need the financial support, and so we’re always conscious of when to step back and let the charity do its own work.

Lauren: Another critical part of being a changemaker in philanthropy is actively reflecting and speaking with others who share this space with you. For us, this has meant seeking inspiration from others to do things differently but also making sure to share our philanthropic work with others who have the ability to create change.

Q: What motivates your support?

Lauren: Broadly speaking, improving the state of the planet and social justice, particularly for young people. As an individual, my focus can shift more flexibly to reflect on current affairs in the news and across social media, whereas once we have set a focus within our Foundation, we try to stick to this.

Becky: I echo Lauren in that biodiversity and social justice really drives my personal giving, and I also prefer to be more responsive to emerging current affairs as an individual than through our Foundation, which has led me to support the Black Lives Matter movement, LGBT charities, and the crisis in Ukraine. Long-term impact also underpins every donation for me, as I want to be giving to a charity that has a proven track record of doing good work and continuing this.

Q: What expectations do you have of yourself as a philanthropist?

Lauren: I often ask myself “if not me, then who? If not now, then when?”. There are so many challenges facing people and the planet that we have both often felt confused about where to start, but we know that we still need to do something, as much as we know how to do at that moment, and to keep learning as we go.

Becky: Influencing older generations and those with wealth to engage more with this sense of urgency is a big expectation we hold of ourselves. I see the urgency to do something within my studies, but not everyone in our circle is exposed to this like we are. We want to acknowledge our privilege and put it to as much good use as possible and ultimately contribute to making philanthropy a less taboo topic to talk about.

Working with partner charities

Q: What expectations do you hold of charities that you support?

Becky: The pandemic was the ultimate example of how situations can change and the need to be dynamic and innovative in response and we really admired how all of our partner charities were so good at shifting quickly to ensure that our funds were being used in the most efficient and effective ways. 

Lauren: We also really value honesty from our charity partners, and so in our review calls, we encourage them to be open about their reflections and always welcome comments like “this didn’t work so well, we learnt X, and now we’re going to do Y”. Likewise, we have tried to model this behaviour within our Foundation by taking a thorough look at the learnings from our first programme to apply next time.

Q: How hands-on are you with your partner charities and is that important to you?

Becky: We are big believers in collaboration and are always willing to facilitate this if an organisation felt it would be of use, but each charity that we work with operates differently and so some will want to catch up more frequently than others. Our role as funders opens us up to having conversations with many different charities, and so we make an effort to build up a strong knowledge of their successes and challenges to share where relevant across our portfolio of partners.

Lauren: We know that time is precious for charities and so to save them from writing lengthy applications, we opt for introductory calls instead when we are already fairly certain that we want to work with them after doing our due diligence. During our first programme, we asked for our partners’ feedback on the topics they would most like to learn more about, leading us to create optional drop-in sessions on major giving, young people’s involvement, and bridging the gap between young people and conservation. We also offered business mentoring where useful and have found that by facilitating these opportunities for partners to come together and learn, they have in return delivered sessions for us to learn from, which has contributed to building brilliant relationships.

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As next generational giving establishes a stronger presence across the donor landscape, communities like The Prince’s Trust RISE and UNICEF Next Gen are creating opportunities for young donors to expand their networks and collaborate on their growing appetites to do something that inspires change.

Kate Symondson stepped into philanthropy just last year, being employed to run her family’s charitable fund. She shares with us what she has learnt since then, providing considerations for those looking to step into the world of giving.

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From one beginner to another

My family’s investment office has been contributing a percentage of annual profits to a charitable fund for a while, but until last year, their giving tended to be tentative and sporadic.

To overcome the anxieties associated with giving and to be more purposeful and impactful, they recognised that they needed someone working specifically on developing their philanthropic activities, and, last summer, gave me the opportunity to turn the passive fund into an active Foundation. Employing me was a calculated step towards responsible giving, but it was also a leap of faith, as this was my first foray into the world of philanthropy.

“I still have much to learn about what it takes to be a “good” philanthropist.”

Several months down the line, I still have much to learn about what it takes to be a “good” philanthropist, and indeed, what that even means. What is clear to me, however, is the importance of collaboration, so I offer the following thoughts to fellow fledgling philanthropists as a means of fostering community, and to be a part of the conversation. 

Build flexibility into your architecture

My philanthropy journey began in the depths of Covid-times, and at a time when philanthropists were being advised that the best way to help was to be responsive and flexible. Whilst I believe having a firm architecture is crucial for being strategic and impactful as givers, I felt it was important to be fundamentally elastic and open-minded in our approach, and so devised ways of building this into what we stand for, and how we operate. 

There is plenty of advice and tools for working out what it is you stand for, which can be particularly helpful if there are a few of you, each with their own views. Pinning down sectors, geographies, and demographics you are interested in is certainly helpful for focussing so that you can strategise.

In these especially volatile times, however, I felt that defining our focus in terms of aims – the societal changes we would like to see – rather than limiting ourselves to defined areas, would be an effective way of keeping our purpose in view without eclipsing organisations responding creatively and thoughtfully to changing needs. 

Research quietly and thoroughly 

My professional background is in academia, and I relish the countless ways in which philanthropic work thrives on thorough research and ongoing reflection. As Ewan Kirk pointed out recently in an interview with Beacon, “philanthropic giving is very tied to emotions, but it’s important to back up your choices with evidence.”

“I have the register of UK-based charities bookmarked, and this gives insight into the broad strokes of a charity’s size, operations and finances.”

The funds I give come from investments my family and their colleagues make, and it seems logical to me that effective giving would share the rigour of due diligence undertaken to ensure effective long-term investment.

I try to be mindful of the resource limitations of my sector, however, so I don’t invite unsolicited applications for funding and I do the bulk of my research before approaching an organisation, by which point I will have a thorough understanding of: the key issues; the most effective ways in which these are being addressed across the sector; and have identified a couple of bodies I would like to meet with and give proper consideration to.

The nature of being a registered charity is that there are high levels of transparency, and much information is available online. I have the register of UK-based charities bookmarked, and this gives insight into the broad strokes of a charity’s size, operations and finances. 

Ask what works best for them

There has been a notable shift in the charitable sector in recent years towards emphasising the value of experience-led understanding, that is to say, the recognition that no one can understand particular needs better than the person experiencing them. The same thinking can benefit how philanthropists give, being informed by the needs of the experts doing the work, rather than imposing your own set of criteria. 

Philanthropists tend, as one fundraiser put it to me, “to fund the icing on the cake rather than investing in the ingredients”. Philanthropy is a powerful force in elevating projects, allowing them to go beyond basic to brilliant, but ensuring an organisation’s stability by contributing to their core costs is equally vital.

By giving in an unrestricted way, that is, to the general running costs (of an activity, or of the organisation at large), you don’t just help an organisation “keep going”, you shore-up the foundation essential for innovation and development. Committing to multi-year giving, that is, to an annual payment for (typically) 3 – 5 years, similarly allows for long-term strategising, essential for a charity’s resilience and evolution. 

Don’t be driven by impact

It is rewarding to feel that you have “made a difference”, but measuring that difference is not always easy. Reporting on a “hard outcome”, (that is, a tangible, quantifiable piece of data) is often not possible, though it reads in a gratifying way: e.g. “X number of young people found employment because of this scheme”.

Expecting organisations to deliver hard data where there are other, “softer” ways of reporting impact can place unnecessary pressure on resources. You also risk hampering your own impact if you are wedded to only giving to “hard outcome” initiatives at the cost of others. Requiring an organisation to report regularly, and via a system particular to your organisation (a form, for example) demands time and energy that could have been more impactful elsewhere.

“Asking questions like ‘what have your challenges been?’ helps foster honest, constructive collaboration.”

Building relationships with organisations you support is fulfilling, and catching up on activities informally can be an effective way of learning about progress without putting pressure on resources.

Asking questions like ‘what have your challenges been?’ helps foster honest, constructive collaboration. My hope is that by considering ‘what works best for the organisations I am supporting’, I can better respect their unique sets of needs, and embed  learning and understanding into the heart of my philanthropic practice.

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^{About the author}

^{Kate Symondson is Head of Philanthropy for The Symondson Foundation, a charitable trust established by her family in 2017. The Foundation give to organisations and initiatives focussed on overcoming issues of inequity, supporting emotional and physical wellbeing, and empowering through opportunity. Kate has a PhD in English Literature and runs independent literary courses for adults, exploring the complex histories of cultural phenomena.}