Issue 45: Autumn 2011 inspiring giving newsletter ... · philanthropy uk:newsletter inspiring giving Issue 45: Autumn 2011 INSIDE: For the love of Jack and Ada Trevor Beattie sets

philanthropy uk :newsletter inspiring giving

Issue 45: Autumn 2011

INSIDE:

For the love of Jack and AdaTrevor Beattie sets up foundation inmemory of his parents

Chants and circumstanceCFN chairman Matthew Bowcockshares a vision for local giving

My philanthropic journeyYoung at heart by Jack Petchey

Book reviewGive Smart: Philanthropy that getsresults. Reviewed by Dr Beth Breeze

Influential readingJohn Kingston, ACF chair, on books to inspire

The e-magazine for all those interested in the development of philanthropy

Community philanthropy:The personal touch

philanthropy uk : inspiring givingPhilanthropy UK Quarterly : Issue 45, Autumn 2011 welcome

Community giving appears to be gaining ground amongphilanthropists. Four out of five philanthropists givelocally according to a new survey by Coutts & Co1. Givingcircles, in which philanthropists commune around aninterest, are also gaining in popularity. In this issue wepresent the distinct pleasure and satisfactionphilanthropists enjoy when giving to communities and incommunities.

We also offer advice and some first steps in how to givelocally or as a community. We talk to Matthew Bowcock,chairman of the Community Foundation Network, whichworks at the forefront of community philanthropy in theUK, and hear his views on the outlook for locallymanaged philanthropy as well as the changing face ofcommunity foundations.

As ever, there are several case studies to illustrate the‘whys and wherefores’ of giving to areas with which thegiver has a strong personal tie. Our EuroView bringsnews of interesting community development in venturephilanthropy from Lisa Hehenberger, research director ofthe European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA).And in Influential Reader, John Kingston, chair of boththe Association of Charitable Foundations (ACF) and theNationwide Foundation, shares the reading that has mostinspired him.

welcome

We hope you enjoy this edition of the Philanthropy UKMagazine and as ever welcome your feedback [email protected].

Best wishes,

Cheryl ChapmanManaging Editor

1 Inspiring local philanthropy, Making a difference in local communities, in Association with New Philanthropy Capital and Community Foundation Network, Autumn 2011

philanthropy uk : inspiring givingPhilanthropy UK Quarterly : Issue 45, Autumn 2011 contents

in this issue

Managing Editor Cheryl Chapman

The purpose of the magazine is to disseminate information about newdevelopments in philanthropy. To submit an article for consideration,please contact the Editor at [email protected].

The secretariat for the magazine is being provided by ACF. To subscribefree of charge, please complete the subscription form on our website.

The content of this magazine is the copyright of the Association ofCharitable Foundations (ACF).

Philanthropy UK c/o ACF, Central House,14 Upper Woburn Place, London, WC1H 0AE, United Kingdom

+44 (0)207 255 4490; www.philanthropyuk.org

Design & Artwork by Carrington Griffin Design

Editorial boardDr Beth Breeze (publications editor)David EmersonSue Wixley

Philanthropy UK aims to inspire new giving by providing free and impartialadvice to aspiring philanthropists who want to give effectively. An initiative of theAssociation of Charitable Foundations, we also publish A Guide to Giving, theessential handbook for philanthropists. www.philanthropyuk.org

Philanthropy UK is supported by the

Office for Civil Society in the Cabinet Office

4 Community philanthropy

With the surge in interest in community philanthropy,we explore the distinct pleasure that giving tocommunities of place and interest deliver, along withadvice on how to achieve your philanthropicambitions close to home and heart …

Case Studies15 Trevor Beattie:

For the love of Jack and Ada

16 ROSA: Caring and sharing for women 17 Peter Saunders OBE: From business to pleasure 18 Marcelle Speller: Building the local giving

infrastructure19 Islington Giving: Collaborating around a

community divide20 Kensington and Chelsea Foundation:

Bringing local philanthropy to life

21 Chants and circumstanceCommunity Foundation chairman Matthew Bowcockshares his vision for locally managed philanthropy

24 Government and philanthropy finding common ground?Will Big Society and a localism agenda bringgovernment and philanthropy closer together?

26 A world of difference through local givingEnvironmental Funders Network’s Nick Perks explainshow local philanthropy can be felt on a global scale

28 Funding London – a special caseLondon Funders director Gaynor Humphreys mapsthe capital’s complex funding eco-system

EuroView

30 Emerging communities in venture philanthropyby Lisa Hehenberger, research director, EuropeanVenture Philanthropy Association (EVPA)

My philanthropic journey

32 Young at heartby Jack Petchey, entrepreneur and founder of theJack Petchey Foundation

Publications, reviews and notices

34 Book reviewGive Smart: Philanthropy that gets results Thomas J. Tierney and Joel L. FleishmanReviewed by Dr Beth Breeze

36 Influential readingby John Kingston, chair of the Association ofCharitable Foundations (ACF) and the NationwideFoundation and founder of CAF Venturesome

38 Notices

40 Social Impact Investing Newsby Lisa Wootton, project manager, UKSIF

Front cover:

Marcelle Speller, founder of Localgiving.com, that brings donors and underthe radar local charities together, visits Plymouth based ‘Diggin It’, that shealso supports. Diggin it is one of more than 800 charities featured onLocalgiving.com. It provides an enriching environment for a range ofpeople, including children and young people with disabilities and localschools. Individuals gain skills and confidence, self-esteem and self-sufficiency through gardening and provides an awareness of growing andproducing healthy food as well as reducing waste through composting andrecycling. Find out more: http://localgiving.com/charity/digginit

philanthropy uk : inspiring givingPhilanthropy UK Quarterly : Issue 45, Autumn 2011 community philanthropy : page 4

by Cheryl Chapman

An age of austerity, the birth of BigSociety, a questioning of capitalism, alongwith demands from a new kind ofphilanthropist, have pushed communitygiving up the agenda. Here we look atthe distinct pleasures of giving tocommunities of place and interest andoffer tips on how to achieve yourphilanthropic ambitions close to homeand heart …

The old saw ‘charity begins at home’ is enjoying somewhatof a renaissance.

The UK has a long tradition of community-basedphilanthropy, be it community of place or of interest.Many of the first hospitals, libraries, schools and artgalleries were established by enlightened local businesspeople acting out of faith and enterprise to address thepoverty, disease and social ills that wealth-makingbusiness revolutions had brought to their doorsteps. Someof the UK’s greatest institutions, The Children’s Society,Guy’s Hospital, Whitechapel Art Gallery, stand today asmonuments to that early concern for local neighbourhoodsand people.

But, over the last half century or so, a shrinking worldand a media explosion has opened up a global vista forphilanthropists who have focussed further afield on issuessuch as famine, injustice, environmental disaster and thedeveloping world.

However, the current political, social and economicclimate appears to be bringing philanthropy ‘home’. TheUK’s economic struggles and resulting government cutshave left charities needing to do more with less, while a

‘Big Society’ agenda has seen the state step back to leavespace for individuals and groups to take ownership oftheir problems. A growing gulf between the haves andhave-nots and a summer of riots has also enflamed a newurgency for creating more cohesive communities and aneed to build on the extensive and innovative communitywork already happening. Localism is high on the news,political and giving agenda.

Indications of a trend to give locally includes newresearch from Coutts & Co that accompanies thepublication of a new guide Inspiring Local Philanthropy2,which reveals four out of five of the philanthropists theysurveyed from their client base give locally.

Also nominations for this year’s Arts & Business Prince ofWales Medal for Arts Philanthropy suggest a shifttowards funding arts outside of London. Over 100 peoplewere nominated for the awards and 50% are giving theirmoney to organisations outside the capital.

Arts & Business says: “Given that the last PrivateInvestment survey run by Arts & Business showed thatLondon based cultural organisations were raising over80% of money from individuals, perhaps the strengthening

Community philanthropy:

The personal touch

2 Inspiring local philanthropy, Making a difference in local communities, in Association with New Philanthropy Capital and Community Foundation Network, Autumn 2011


of non-London nominations suggest that change is happening.”

Indeed, new research3 from the Charities AidFoundation’s (CAF) on voluntary income reveals thatsmaller charities have fared better through the recessionthan larger ones. It shows the voluntary income of largecharities (those with an income of over £10m) fell bynearly 11% (or £84m) between 2007 and 2009. Whilemedium-sized charities with an income between £500kand £10m, saw their voluntary donations actuallyincrease by 2.2% over the same period.

Jane Arnott, CAF’s senior advisory manager, says: “Thismay be a result of the importance of ‘local’ charities todonors or the fact that people may be substituting longterm charity commitments for more ad hoc contributions,such as sponsoring friends and family.”

That’s not to say small grassroots organisations are well-funded, especially those which are ‘under the radar’.Despite making up 85% of all voluntary organisations,small organisations receive just 6% of the sector’s totalincome.

But it is not just the growing need of charities or apolitical agenda that is rekindling a passion for localphilanthropy: rather it is the emergence of a ‘new’ kind ofphilanthropist, typically entrepreneurs and financierswho have made their own wealth through shrewd andcreative business practice. They are showing an appetitefor a certain style of high-touch, high-impact, high-engagement philanthropy that is satisfied by supportinglocal communities.

Local philanthropy allows givers to tackle issues close tohome and heart and see the results for themselves.

3 Charity Trends (www.charitytrends.org)


As illustrated throughout a new guide from Coutts & CoInspiring Local Philanthropy, local community activityand philanthropy is driven by people’s passions, interests,enthusiasm, frustrations or aspirations for localcommunities.

And for many philanthropists, supporting thecommunities in which they live, work or from which theyoriginate forms the beginning of their philanthropyjourney.

The rewards of local giving

Supporting a community, whether it be a community ofinterest (See page 9) or a geographical one (see IslingtonGiving page 19), brings particular reward as articulatedby the 30 or so high net worth philanthropistsinterviewed for the 2008 report on community giving4

produced by think tank Policy Exchange.

Just some of the motivations for giving to communitiesvoiced by these donors are:

• ‘touch’ or proximity to one’s giving

• seeing the impact of a donation

• achieving greater impact with modest amounts of money

• being able to contribute time and skills

• building relationships with other donors, localorganisations and beneficiaries

Guy Hands, founder and chairman of Terra Firma PrivateCapital, noted: “If you cannot see the impact, it is verydifficult for a businessman to give. A community charitymay not always have the advantage of scale, but it doeshave the advantage of closeness and being able todemonstrate first-hand what it does.”

Hedge fund investor Michael Hintze, who runs his ownfoundation, speaks of an element of ‘market place’ in“liking to see what is going on”.

While a private equity partner, quoted in the report,explained the power of ‘touch’: “Most things are easier tounderstand if you can touch them and feel them. If youcan meet the people either doing the work or benefitingfrom the work, it makes it real. One of the biggestproblems with donating money is that often you have nosense of ownership or touch. The human touch is a verystrong feeling. If you cannot touch something, there is arisk it does not exist and it is much easier to engender thatfeeling if that thing is in striking distance.”

Proximity however can strain the delicate relationshipbetween giver and recipient, in a way that does nothappen when giving to a large national charity. Manyinterviewees raised the issue and were aware that it hadto be dealt with sensitively and some preferred to shelterbehind a named trust or complete anonymity. But oncethey were deeply involved with a community, all said itwould be very difficult to walk away – their commitmentto an area became long-term, the bridges they had builtwere solid, according to the report.

Philanthropist Marcelle Speller and founder ofLocalgiving.com that brings local charities and funderstogether through a digital platform says seeing thedifference she has made helping the ‘amazing’ people thatrun the charities she supports gives her “a sense ofcommunity, of belonging, and it recharges me”.

“By giving locally you can see that you are givingeffectively, and you can have the most joyous, enrichingexperiences.”

4 Building Bridges, Philanthropy Strengthening Communities, Rhodri Davis and Louisa Mitchell, advised by David Carrington, published by Policy Exchange, 2008

Fishing for Litter South West benefitsthe commercial fishing fleet by

reducing the damage caused by marinelitter and improving environments


Giving smaller amounts of money strategically to achievegreater impact is one of the most rewarding aspects ofgrassroots philanthropy, interviewees reported.

SGV Capital chairman Nick Ferguson, who is chairman ofthe Institute for Philanthropy and supports areas ofScotland explains in the report: “Although the amounts weare giving away are not unappreciable, I feel they wouldnot make a dent in the big charities. Whereas if we givethat money to small organisations up in the Highlands itmakes a huge difference because so few people are reallyfunding up there.”

Maggie Baxter OBE, founder and chair of Rosa, thewoman’s fund for women and girls (see page 16) adds: “We do not need to be big, we need to be strategic. We donot need £50 million to make a statement. We need to usesmall amounts of money well to have influence…Womencan achieve an awful lot with £500.”

Coutts’ guide, produced in response to growing clientdemand for more information on locally-focussedphilanthropy, confirms much of the earlier report.Andrew Preston, a North East property developer, says:“For my family and me, it is the engagement that gives thesatisfaction, not just signing a cheque. Staying engaged isone of the keys to successful giving. It is a privilege to beable to give and make a contribution to social change.”

In the same report Angus and Wanda Lloyd, who set upthe East Court Fund in 2006 to support local need inSurrey, say fulfilment comes from “helping and getting toknow people in need in our local area. It’s more rewardingthan simply handing out a cheque. We like to get to knowthe individuals involved and, where possible, meet thebeneficiaries. We believe this support is more valuablelong-term as we are able to build up a real relationship.”

But many find it is not particularly easy to give theirmoney away at grassroots level. The main difficulty is inidentifying the most pressing needs and then finding theright local projects to give to.

A Spring 2011 survey from independent research agencyActionPoint that compared the public’s awareness of localcharities in Hertfordshire and West Yorkshire revealedlow recall. Overall just over half – 51% of residents – wereable to name a charity.

Technology is helping. As mentioned earlier MarcelleSpeller used the skills and acumen employed to build herbusiness Holiday-Rentals.com to create Localgiving.com(see page 18) to bring donors and charities together.

The internet also allows for research through local press,intermediary organisations, the charities themselves, aswell allowing donors to connect with each other. Donor

The 999 Club is based in two of the four most deprivedneighbourhoods in Lewisham, itself one of the mostdeprived Local Authority areas in England. It aims to offerimmediate help in any situation as well as long-termsupport to the most disadvantaged members of society – the homeless, the addicted, those with mental healthissues, ex-offenders, vulnerable children and the elderly. It is one of more than 800 charities featured on theLocalgiving.com website that brings donors and under-the-radar local charities together.http://localgiving.com/charity/999club


networking is reported as one of the real pleasures of localgiving, and there are many opportunities to networkonline and off through giving circles (see Rosa page 16)for example.

Technology can be the medium through which new donorcommunities emerge. Philanthropist and chairman of theCommunity Foundation Network (See Chants andcircumstanc, page 21) Matthew Bowcock says: “I thinkpeople build their own philanthropic communities,particularly when their community is a cause. With themodern social networking technologies people can buildcompletely new communities out of philanthropy, but theyare as likely to be virtual as geographic.”

Michael Hintze summarised how communities of interestand place can overlap: “Nowadays with killertelecommunications and travel, the definition ofcommunity has changed and community circles can becreated from diasporas. Things I supportphilanthropically because of community connections aremy old university, the University of Sydney, the church,and where I live in Wandsworth.”

It’s clear ‘local’ does not mean ‘parochial’.

In some cases, effective local activity can be ‘scaled-up’ orreplicated to benefit other communities across the UK, orindeed internationally.

Many local projects focus on longer term globalchallenges, such as climate change, resource scarcity orchanging demographics, all of which will have profoundlong-term implications for local communities. Rising sealevels place coastal areas at higher risk of flooding, scarceresources mean higher prices and hardship for those onlower incomes, an aging population will haveconsequences for the provision of care.

The just-published Funding Locally, Thinking Globally5

report from the Environmental Funders Network, drawson the desire to make a difference locally, and the concernfor the common good. The booklet brings together six casestudies of forward-looking local projects that arecontributing to a more sustainable world. (See A world ofdifference through local giving, page 26)

Across the UK, thousands of organisations are positivelyimpacting communities from the grassroots up. The rangeof opportunities and ways to use wealth, expertise, skillsand social capital to support their organisations istherefore immense. In fact it can be overwhelming. In thenext section we look at how philanthropists can approachthese opportunities to best meet their ambitions.

Local approaches to giving

Values, passions, interests; available resources (includingmoney, time, skills and networks); and an understandingof the local context are the key factors in giving locally.

For many, giving locally marks the start of aphilanthropic adventure. At the outset it is useful toconsider some questions about how to achieve your vision.

Fitzrovia Youth in Action (FYA) supports youngpeople in the London Borough of Camden and City ofWestminster in planning and organising projects and

activities that benefit their community. It is one ofmore than 800 charities featured on the

Localgiving.com website that brings donors andunder the radar local charities together.

http://localgiving.com/charity/fitzroviayouth

5 Funding Locally, Thinking Globally, Six case studies on building a better world, The Environmental Funder’s Network, October 2011


Coutts guide Inspiring Local Philanthropy suggests:

• How do I find out what are the most pressing challengesor opportunities in the communities I care about?

• How and where might my support make difference?

• How do I find effective organisations to support?

• How can my support lead to sustained change?

• How might I measure success?

Others might include:

• How much time do I have to commit to philanthropy?

• What business or practical skills can I bring?

• How can I use my networks to further my aims?

Understanding local context

There are many resources one can access to find out aboutlocal communities. The local press and media is a goodstarting point as are local council websites. Some saythere is no better way of understanding the complexitiesof a community than getting out and about talking to thecommunity leaders and local groups who know the areaand its culture and faiths intimately.

There are also numerous research reports aboutcommunities available and the Philanthropy UK ReportDatabase lists some of these

www.philanthropyuk.org/resources/reports

Giving network for black philanthropists under exploration

There is a strong history of Black Philanthropy in the US which is well documented. In the UK less so, althoughthere are prominent black individuals and businesses that are well known for their social aims and charitablework.

Communities Inc, a new national body set up in a period of rapid change to ensure communities remain central toinfluencing and directing their futures, is exploring the interest it has picked up on in developing a National BlackPhilanthropists Network, a Centre for Black Philanthropy and a Black Causes Fund. It would act as a vehicle thatcould draw in substantial resources for issues that most persistently affect black communities, including health,poverty, inequality, unemployment and crime.

Shamsher Chohan, who co-founded Communities Inc withMichael Henry, says: “From our initial research we have foundthat there is a need for a national infrastructure to facilitate thisin a more co-ordinated manner so that black individuals andbusinesses that want to support black causes can do so.

“The current public sector funding landscape is looking bleak,with a mixture of funding cuts and increased competition.Organisations that serve black and minority communities arebeing decimated locally as a result and desperately need alternativesources of support and resources.

“We intend firstly to develop the network through further researchand then establish the fund through this.”

Should you wish to be kept informed of this or get more involved,contact Shamsher: [email protected] or call07966 461936.

Communities Inc brings creativity and innovation to the mostpersistent social and community problems, enabling freshapproaches to be implemented involving those most affected by theissues in determining sustainable solutions.


Ways to give

There are a wide range of approaches that philanthropistscan adopt when supporting local communities, fromworking with Community Foundations and providingfunding directly to charitable organisations or socialenterprises, through to co-funding with peers or settingup an operating organisation. These require differentcommitments in terms of time, personal resources andlevels of engagement.

Community Foundations

A Community Foundation is a geographically focusedcharity with a range of vehicles for giving time, moneyand expertise. Community Foundations exist in all partsof the UK.

There are many ways to use a Community Foundation.Donors can provide support (usually in the form of anendowed fund) to their community issue or area. One ofthe benefits of this approach is that overheads that everycharity and private trust incurs are spread among manydonors. Applicants benefit as one application to acommunity foundation potentially accesses funding frommany funds. Community Foundations also providesupport services including: research and knowledge oflocal opportunities; connections with charities andcommunity groups, and for donors to offer their expertise;donor networking and co-funding with local grant-makers;and support to local businesses with their giving.

Useful resources

Community Foundations Network:www.communityfoundations.org.uk

Co-funding with a local grant-maker

Making grants is the most common way of directlysupporting local organisations and can be done directly orthrough intermediaries (as explained earlier). Workingwith an experienced local grant-maker can be a greatsupport and overcome some of the more testing issues ofgiving such as carrying out due diligence on the charitiesyou wish to support.

Useful resources

The Association of Charitable Foundations (ACF) is agood resource for finding established grant-makersoperating throughout the UK. ACF is also a valuablesource of publications and training for trusts andfoundations: www.acf.org.uk

Giving tax efficiently

To have even more impact with your giving circle’s funds,you should ensure that your giving is tax efficient.Depending on the focus and approach of your giving circleyou may want to explore the options offered via Gift Aid,setting up a charitable trust, or being hosted by acommunity foundation which will manage the financialaspects as well as offer opportunities for co-operation andshared learning.

A final word

Most importantly, enjoy yourself and don’t sweat thesmall stuff – keep your eye on the big picture (the impactof your donations) and let your circle develop its shapeover time. There is no one ‘right’ model for giving circles.Your original goals and purpose may change as the circle,and the impact of your giving, evolves.

Useful resources

Community Foundation Network: the network of UKcommunity foundations.www.communityfoundations.org.uk

Giving Works: A charity which fosters and supportsmicro-trusts, or small giving circles. www.givingworks.org.uk

The Funding Network: the UK’s largest giving network,with groups across the UK, including a Youth FundingNetwork. www.thefundingnetwork.org.uk


Giving with others

The pleasure of giving is often enhanced by giving withina group where issues relating to wealth and charity canbe discussed freely, and where donors can learn togetherabout their community and philanthropy.

These groups, known as giving circles and networks, cantake many forms and generally involve groups ofindividuals coming together with a philanthropic purpose,pooling their pounds and resources, and decidingcollectively where to give their money.

Within these basic parameters no two groups look or actthe same. One of the most appealing and effectiveaspects of giving circles and networks is the opportunityto shape the group to meet the particular needs of acommunity, and the interests and capabilities ofparticipants.

They vary in size and structure, ranging from an informalgroup of friends meeting locally to large, formalorganisations with employed staff members.

Types of giving circles

The focus of groups is wide ranging and the approach togiving just as broad as these examples –

Local – a group of like-minded people who give to localcauses, such as the Women’s Trust Fund*

Interest-based – give to a specific cause as in the work ofthe Oxford Givers Circle* or Rosa (see page 16), or CouttsDonor Advised Funds (Micro-finance and environmental)

Project-based – micro-trusts or ‘giving clubs’ such asthose set-up by Giving Works in which a group of peoplecome together to focus on one project and then disband

Event-based – networks that draw people together forcharitable events and giving as with the marketplace

approach of The Funding Network, that brings togetherphilanthropists who take a Dragon Den’s approach togiving. It is the UK’s largest giving network, with groupsacross the UK, including a Youth Funding Network andthe UK’s first open giving circle.

In-house corporate – networks within companies thatgive often via CSR practices, such as BT Women’sNetwork*

Social media networks – a flourishing trend ofcollective giving via online sites such as Facebook.

*For more information on these examples, seePhilanthropy UK’s report, Women & Philanthropy:Inspiring women, inspired giving, available from thePhilanthropy UK website.

Setting up a giving network

There are only a few basic guidelines in developing agiving circle –

• Determine size and type of circle, and who you want toinvolve

• Establish your purpose and objectives

• Agree your focus areas

• Develop your giving approach

• Research and identify potential recipients

• Evaluate your impact before making furthercommitments

Donor Advised Funds

Donor advised funds are simple and easy to set-up anduse, and there are a variety of schemes available whichsuit most donors’ needs.

You decide how much you want to give and pay it intoyour fund. You can also fund the account through payrollgiving or by gifts of shares.

One of the benefits of operating a donor advised fund isthat the host organisation deals with the administrationand distribution of funds, and provides you with all thetax benefits. Donor advised funds are a tax-efficient wayof giving to charity, as they can claim back the tax on GiftAid donations and add it to the amount in your account.If you are a higher-rate taxpayer, the periodic statementsyou will receive provide a useful record of your giving andwill help you make your personal tax claim on your SelfAssessment tax return.

For example, you could start a fund with your localfoundation. You can determine your level of involvementwith funding decisions, while benefiting from thefoundation’s local knowledge, grant-making expertise,monitoring and reporting processes.

Charity accounts, another type of donor-advised fund, aresimilar to bank accounts and are designed especially forcharitable giving. There are many ways to give to yourchosen charities through a charity account: generallydonations can be made online, with charity cheque books,via debit cards or vouchers, or by telephone, post orstanding order.

However, if you are giving relatively few donations oflarger amounts, or if you use payroll giving and want tobenefit a particular charity regularly, it may be lessexpensive (and not much more complicated) to give


directly to your chosen causes. You would save theadministration charges, and because no interest is paidon your charity account, there could be a sizeable cost ifyou maintain a significant balance in your account.

Useful resources

Charities Aid Foundation: www.cafonline.org

Community Foundation Network:www.communityfoundations.org.uk

Coutts Philanthropy Services Microfinance DonorAdvised Fund: www.coutts.com/private-banking/wealth-institute/philanthropy/

Prism the Gift Fund: www.prismthegiftfund.co.uk

Stewardship: www.stewardship.org.uk

Investing in a local vision

In recent years we have seen the philanthropy spectrumbroaden to encompass social enterprise and socialinvestment that deliver ‘blended’, i.e. social, financial and(sometimes) environmental returns.

Social enterprises come in all sizes and some are well-established, but the majority are small and fledgling. Thesocial investment market is an emerging one, and as yetunderdeveloped, though government through Big SocietyCapital and other funds aims to help draw investment into create a more robust social economy.

Venture Philanthropy, angel philanthropy and social(impact) investment are new ways for philanthropists totake part. In the last issue of the Philanthropy UKMagazine we focussed on social impact investing forphilanthropists which offers a deep dive into the topic andsources of help and support. It can be found atwww.philanthropyuk.org/quarterly/social-impact-investing-philanthropy-uk-magazine-summer-2011

Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFI)

Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs)lend money to businesses, social enterprises andindividuals who struggle to get finance from high streetbanks and loan companies. They help deprivedcommunities by offering loans and support at anaffordable rate to people who cannot access creditelsewhere.

They tackle poverty through wealth creation and offerinvestors a tax efficient way to give that delivers bothfinancial and social returns. CDFIs increase the impact ofyour investment through recycling funds: as loans arerepaid, they are re-loaned.

The Community Investment Tax Relief (CITR) scheme,set up under the Finance Act 2002, offers a tax incentive

Volunteering

Giving time or expertise is a vital way to support localorganisations and can be done alongside giving financialsupport or not. It is an effective way to get under the skinof local issues and can be a way of learning and developingnew skills. Volunteering can be done at all levels of anorganisation from being a trustee, on the executive board,a committee member or on the frontline. It could be aboutbeing an advocate or ambassador for an organisation andusing social capital and networks to help bring in moresupport or raise the profile of an organisation. Theopportunities are vast. For those who have builtsuccessful businesses themselves it can be a veryrewarding and strategic way to approach philanthropy.

Useful resources

For volunteering opportunities, contact your localvolunteer centre: www.volunteering.org.uk

Timebank helps people find things to do close to wherethey live or work: www.timebank.org

For trustee vacancies, search the Trustee Network’sdatabase: www.trusteenet.org.uk/jobs-search

Getting on Board: www.gettingonboard.org

Pilotlight matches talented business people withcharities and manages the relationship:www.pilotlight.org.uk

City Action is a free volunteer matchmaking service forCity-based companies and community organisations inthe City and City fringe boroughs. www.city-action.org

National Association for Voluntary and CommunityAction (NAVCA) is the national voice of local supportand development organisations in England.www.navca.org.uk


to investors in accredited community development financeinstitutions (CDFIs). It is run jointly by HM Revenue &Customs (HMRC) and the Department for Business,Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR).

CITR is available to any individual or company with aUK tax liability investing in an accredited CDFI wherethe investment is held for at least five years. Thetaxpayer, who can either be an individual or company,receives a relief to offset against their income orcorporation tax liability of 5% of the amount invested inthe year the investment is made, and a further 5% ineach of the subsequent four years.

The total relief is worth up to 25% of the value of theinvestment. This tax relief is in addition to any interest ordividend paid by the CDFI.

ExampleAn individual subscribes £10,000 for shares in a CDFIon 1 June 2010. CITR would reduce the individual’sincome tax liability for the tax year 2010/11 and foreach of the four subsequent tax years by £500 (5% of£10,000). Total income tax reduction over the five years would be £2,500.

Useful resources

Community Development Finance Association:www.cdfa.org.uk

A list of accredited CDFIs, where your investment willqualify for tax relief under CITR, is available from theDepartment for Business Enterprise and RegulatoryReform website: www.bis.gov.uk

Giving locally through your business

Businesses, particularly family owned businesses, whichsupport local organisations report many benefits in doingso – ‘bringing employees together and energising them’,‘developing skills’, but most clearly by ‘giving somethingback to a local community’.

Place is important for businesses. J Barbour and Sons, forexample, originally made weatherproof clothing for thefishing industry on the Tyne, and The Barbour Trust stillpredominately supports North East causes. It is easier togive locally in regions that have a strong identity, like theNorth East, and more difficult in major capital cities likeLondon, but the imperative ‘to look after one’s own’ isnevertheless still strong.

Being strategic about giving, by giving in a way that echoesyour business so you can concentrate on what you do best,is becoming more prevalent as a Deloitte report Morethan just giving6 reveals. There are a number of waysthat businesses can get involved with local groups. Theseinclude allocating a share of profits to a corporatefoundation and distributing this to local organisations,encouraging staff to volunteer in their local communitiesand establishing payroll giving schemes.

Useful resources

Business in the Community advises businesses on social responsibility, including volunteering andcharitable giving. www.bitc.org.uk

Heart of the City provides free support for businesses in the City wanting to develop or expand their existing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)programmes. www.theheartofthecity.com

6 More than just giving, Analysis of Corporate Responsibility, Deloitte, 2011, www.deloitte.com

Setting up a charitable organisation

For some, setting up an organisation is the best option,particularly if the ambition is to address a novel orunique courses. It requires significant time and resourcesso it is worth exploring whether there are existingorganisations that can be supported or developed ratherthan reinventing the wheel. Using the local informationnetwork by talking to community experts (grant-makingtrusts and foundations, the local council, communityfoundations or existing organisations operating in a givenfield or area) can help establish what currently exists.

Useful resources

The charity commission provides useful guidance onsetting up charitable organisations:

www.charitycommission.gov.uk/Start_up_a_charity/default.aspx

Philanthropy UK Guide to giving:www.philanthropyuk.org


New guide from Coutts & Co on inspiring local philanthropy

A growing demand from clients for information on local giving inspired this new guide from Coutts& Co, whichhas been written in association with New Philanthropy Capital and the Community Foundation Network. It illustrates how philanthropists can go about supporting the communities they care about. The guide:

• Illustrates the breadth and diversity of local activity, the challengesand indeed opportunities that many communities face and theways in which philanthropists can effectively enhance thewellbeing of local residents or the neighbourhood.

• Suggests some practical steps that philanthropists can takewhen considering support for local communities, rangingfrom volunteering to funding local organisations, and fromcollaborating with other funders to establishing anoperating charity.

• Outlines how philanthropists can go about deepeningtheir understanding of any given local context.

• Provides inspiration by example, in a series of case-studies describing the work of philanthropists whohave chosen to support the communities that matter to them.

The Guide is available at www.coutts.com/private-banking/wealth-institute/philanthropy

ensure that they remain together forever, as a force for good.

It will adhere to their life-long held principles offair play, care for the vulnerable and getting thejob done. It will fight against inequality in allits forms (when you come from a family ofTEN, you soon learn the importance ofequality) and will probably bear the Beattie’shealthy mistrust of authority.

We don’t aim to eradicate globalpoverty, or tackle climate change bynext Wednesday. We will be fightingmuch smaller battles, backingachievable ambitions. Assisting thevulnerable and marginalised of theMidlands and London, byawarding grants of between £500and £2,000 to individuals andcharities whose aspirationsmatch the spirit of Jack andAda.

From continuing to support the D-Day Veterans to the Gift of Flightfor the disabled and putting poorkids through media studies atUniversity, we’d like our support to be asemotional as it is financial.

Hence our mission statement:

“KNOWING THAT SOMEONE ISFIGHTING YOUR CORNER IS HALFTHE BATTLE WON.”

The Foundation will have the joint themesof ‘Fight and Flight’: Doing battle onbehalf of those we see as less able to defendthemselves, and supporting the flight ofambition for who it is prevented.

Our prioritised areas of giving are: WarVeterans; elderly care and vulnerable adults.

Trevor Beattie, the advertising maverick whoshook the world with his ‘FCUK’ campaign forFrench Connection and “Hello Boys” forWonderbra, has launched a foundation thatcommemorates his inspirational parents Jackand Ada, to “assist the vulnerable andmarginalised” of his Midlands birthplace andLondon where he made his name. Here heshares his inspiration.

I set up the Jack And Ada Beattie Foundation inhonour and memory of my parents, and the parents ofmy seven brothers and sisters: Kevin, Pat, Sheila, Dave,Theresa, Paul and Pete.

Jack was born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. Ada,Birmingham born and bred.

Jack Beattie was a stranger in a strange land, arrivingin wartime Birmingham with nothing but an Irishaccent as impenetrable as a block of peat and a twinklein both eyes. He was no fan of authority. Or TheSystem. Or anything which resembled rules, for thatmatter. But he had a powerful sense of right andwrong. He hated injustice. And he swept my Mum andBrum off their collective feet.

My Mum’s favourite movie was “It’s A WonderfulLife”. How very apt that proved to be. Hers was indeeda wonderful life, from the austerity of the 1920s toChampagne flights on Concorde and tea at Number 10with the Prime Minister. She survived her workplacebeing bombed in the Second World War. Married a tall,dark Irish stranger. And together they raised EIGHTchildren. Through the toughest of times. Adapassionately believed in education and the rewards itwould bring in later life. That the pen was alwaysmightier than the sword. (Anyone disrespecting thisbelief however, would soon discover that the slipper wasmightier than both the pen AND the sword.)

Together, they were quite a force of nature. And it’s myabiding aim that The Jack & Ada Beattie Foundation will


Case study: Trevor Beattie – For the love of Jack and Ada

We provide support through a grants scheme, which isopen to organisations as well as individuals,

operating in these areas of provision.

Let battle commence.

Trevor Beattie set up BMB in 2005.

In recent years, he has become acampaigner on local issues in and around his home town of

Birmingham, including a high-profilecampaign to prevent a 107-year old woman being evicted from her carehome, and offering a bursary for a student toattend a Media studies course at City ofBirmingham University.

For further details on the Jack and Ada BeattieFoundation and the Gala launch event on

Friday 18th November, contact foundationdirector, Alexandra Taliadoros, [email protected]

www.beattiefoundation.com


Rosa is now looking to use the giving circle model ofshared giving to work with young women throughout theUK. By working with their peers to raise or distributemoney young women will be able to explore the issuesthat matter to them, and also build skills and confidencein their ability to influence. Women and girls involved in collective giving in the US,where it’s a much more established model, cite the manybenefits, which include bringing new funds to a particularissue or organisation; fuelling social change; contributingin an intellectually stimulating way; giving teens anopportunity to exercise and demonstrate responsibility;and learning about what really works.By encouraging young women to give, Rosa hopes toembed a sense of aspiration towards financial decision-making in girls from more disadvantaged backgrounds, aswell as demonstrating the power of giving, even in smallamounts. By coming together to give with your peers –whether in a school, a community centre, an investmentbank, a dinner party, or through an online portal –women can broaden their knowledge, deepen theirimpact, and lend power to the voices of those who mostoften go unheard.

www.rosauk.org

Case study: Rosa – Caring and sharing for women

Rosa is the first UK-wide fund for women andgirls. Since her launch in 2008 she has givengrants using a number of different models,working to develop philanthropy for women inthe UK. Here Anya Stern, Rosa co-ordinator,shares the fund’s vision.

Shared giving has always been at the heart of heragenda, be this between established funders workingtogether on joint initiatives, or through creating avirtual network of individual donors pledging £1,000 ayear to Rosa. Going forward Rosa hopes to develop and pilot othermodels of shared giving to connect donors and workersto each other and create a new commitment tophilanthropy in tomorrow’s decision makers. As well as bringing money into the sector, giving withothers exposes people to new issues and ideas. One ofthe most important links Rosa wishes to make is thatbetween donors and recipients. These links will meanthat donors can make more informed decisions aboutwhere they give, and that these decisions will beinformed by those working in the field – allowing thosewho form the narratives to influence the decisionsabout how change is made. We believe thisengagement makes a more rewarding experience forall involved, as well as ensuring that the ideas of theexperts are supported. Rosa has been doing this in herown work. This year, following the launch of herChallenge Fund, she undertook an analysis of all theapplications received, as well as the responses to aconsultation about how the money should be spent.What was very clear from both the survey and theanalysis, was that work with young women was in direneed of funding, and that much of the work dealt withthe need for young girls to have varied role models,and opportunities to develop leadership skills andaspiration.

Anya Stern, Rosa co-ordinator


can select what you fund wisely, get involved with thecauses and influence what happens with the funding. Ilike the whole sense of involvement. I get a lot of pleasureout of making things happen, guiding people, stepping inif things are not going well, and actually seeing thebenefits. I am always on the lookout for a large-scaleproject that could galvanise the whole community andhave a major impact on everyone in the local area. I alsolook out for the opportunity for the trust to get involved insome of the deeper social issues that exist even in a ruralcommunity.

My advice to others who want to give locally would be toset up the trust in a professional manner and ensure youhave other trustees around with whom to haveconstructive and challenging debate. Get involved and gettalking to people!

Core to the trust are its independence, flexibility andvision. Some projects may be more successful than others,but you need to be prepared to accept some level of risk.

The sense of being able to make something happen andbeing able to help someone is enormously fulfilling andrewarding. It is a great privilege to be in a position tomake a difference to someone’s life.

Peter Saunders, OBE is an entrepreneur, business angeland philanthropist, who has lived and worked in ruralWales for over 35 years.

Currently, he has a portfolio of businesses within Walesin which he invests, and he is working with one on a jointventure involving companies in America and India. He was honoured with an OBE in 1995 for services tobusiness in Wales and set up his charity the PeterSaunders Trust in 2005.

Reprinted with the kind permission of Coutts & Co. The full case study is one ofseveral featured in Coutts & Co’s new guide Inspiring Local Philanthropy,Making a difference in local communities, in association with New PhilanthropyCapital and Community Foundation Network, Autumn 2011

Case study: Peter Saunders OBE – From business to pleasure

Entrepreneur, business angel and philanthropistPeter Saunders OBE shares his story ofphilanthropy in the Welsh community he knowsintimately.

I set up my first business in Wales. Halo Foods came tohave an exceptional culture with huge loyalty and trustbetween the leaders and the workforce.

When I sold Halo Foods at the end of 2004, I realisedhow important the community aspect of our activitieswas. I also realised I could help through my variedbusiness experience. So I set up the Peter SaundersTrust in 2005 and gifted to it a sum of money from thesale of my business.

I had been introduced by then to the idea of a “livingwill”, which entailed gifting money during one’slifetime rather than through a Will at the end of life.This appealed to me. You can influence things withinyour own lifetime and really see and feel the differenceyou are making. Coutts was instrumental in thisthinking and introduced me to a specialist charitieslawyer in Cardiff who set up the trust for me.

I wanted to have as trustees local people with diverseexperiences, and to get my family involved. With this inmind, the first trustees included one of my three sons(an accountant!) and prominent people in the localcommunity, such as a police officer and a fellowbusinessman with experience as chair of trustees at agiant pension fund.

Since the initial donation, I have made more donations,but I also give my time to running the charity. Thetrust is proudly local in its outlook. I decided from thevery start that I wanted to focus on what had been the“travel to work” area for my businesses. I also wantedto support the local communities that had supportedme through the first phase of my business life so I couldgive something back.

The great thing about giving locally is that you haveintimate knowledge of that area. This means that you

caption


the local charities I’m trying to help. But againserendipity brought the solution. I was asked to appearon channel 4’s Secret Millionaire and was filmed for 10days in Plymouth. I volunteered with five amazing localcharities and realised that each of them would benefithugely from Localgiving.com.

They all know the needs of their community, and aredoing ground-breaking projects that I could never havethought of. Jeremiah’s Journey, set up by doctors in theoncology department of Plymouth Hospital, helpsbereaved children. With my donation, they are now alsoable to help children who are about to lose a parent. Andthey have already raised £10,000 through Localgiving.com.I go back to Plymouth regularly and see the differencethat I have helped these amazing people make. It gives mea sense of community, of belonging, and it recharges me.

So that was my journey. Warren Buffett has said thatgiving money away effectively is more difficult thanmaking it. By giving locally you can see that you aregiving effectively, and you can have the most joyous,enriching experiences.

www. localgiving.com

www.instituteforphilanthropy.org

www.communityfoundations.org.uk

Successful entrepreneur Marcelle Speller usedher winning business skills to connect under-the-radar local charities with philanthropists. Hereshe shares her enriching journey.

My philanthropic journey started in 2005, after the saleof Holiday-Rentals.com which I had co-founded nineyears previously. Without the need to make money, Icould now focus on something that had always been agoal – to do something worthwhile. It’s hard to describewithout clichés, it’s not “giving back” as that infersyou’ve taken away; maybe it’s as simple as trying toleave the world a better place in some small way.

After a few false starts, I took the Institute forPhilanthropy Workshop. We visited charities and NGOsin the UK, Vietnam and New York. But wherever wewent it was the small local charities that inspired me.They are directly accountable to their beneficiaries - theglue that holds local communities together. In the UKthey are seriously threatened by government spendingcuts, and the fact that online giving, rising at 50% peryear, is not available to small unregistered charities,thus making them even more disadvantaged versuslarger charities.

My ‘light bulb’ moment came when I realised I couldhelp them in the same way that Holiday-Rentals.comlet private owners of holiday homes compete on the webwith large villa companies.

The problem was, how was I going to find these smalllocal charities? Pure serendipity brought the solution.Matthew Bowcock, the chairman of the UK’sCommunity Foundation Network, was in my cohort onThe Philanthropy Workshop. He could give me access tothe 26,000 local charities that have been vetted by theirlocal Community Foundation.

As with any start-up enterprise – social or profit-driven,it’s been hard work. Most of my time is spent behind acomputer, which can make me feel disconnected from

Philanthropist and Localgiving.com founder Marcelle Speller

Case study: Marcelle Speller – Building the local giving infrastructure


It has had a very successful year, raising over £1m, givenout grants of over £500,000, been featured in theGovernment’s Giving White Paper as an innovativeexample of local philanthropy and been endorsed byIslington Council’s Fairness Commission. It has set up new partnerships with BT and MacquarieBank to develop staff volunteering in Islington for thefirst time and created and funded a new grantsprogramme of £500,000 in 2011 to support young people,identify its poorest residents and tackle deprivation.The campaign aims to attract donors of all levels and allkinds, whether it’s time, money or skills, and this isanother of its strengths.A local marketing campaign to raise awareness of theproject in the community includes a taxi bearing thecampaign branding and involves the owner of a local fishand chip shop who has added £1 to the price of his mealsthat will go directly to the fund.The fact that such depravation and extreme wealth sitcheek by jowl is seen as a ‘geographic advantage’ by thegroup in engaging the community.“We know that Islington has a vibrancy, energy andwealth of talent that is hard to beat. But there’s alsomuch about the borough that perhaps isn’t recognised;London’s richest and poorest residents exist side by sidebut live entirely different lives. It was in considering howlife really is for many of our neighbours that IslingtonGiving sprang to life,” says Morris.“Our aspiration for Islington Giving is that it will becomea leading example of how all of the community can pulltogether to address the root causes of social disadvantage.We firmly believe that what we are looking to achieve inIslington – and the means by which we are approachingthe challenge – is new and innovative, but also entirelyreplicable across other parts of the country,” he adds.

www.islingtongiving.org.uk

Case study: Islington Giving – Collaborating around a community divide

Islington Giving is the latest twist on acollaborative trend, bringing together six localtrusts of varying age and size and one nationalorganisation –The Breadsticks Foundation, CityBridge Trust, Cripplegate Foundation, RichardCloudesley’s Charity, The Morris CharitableTrust, Voluntary Action Islington and Unltd – to leverage their strengths, local understanding,skills and resources in tackling the inequitybetween the ‘two Islingtons’ – one very poor andone very wealthy.

The inspiration for the coalition was a 2008 reportpublished by the Cripplegate Foundation calledInvisible Islington, which looked at the poverty thatexists in the borough and explored the factors thatmake it so entrenched – ill-health, debt, isolation andlack of opportunity.Philanthropist Jack Morris, founder of the BusinessDesign Centre and The Morris Charitable Trust,explains the thinking behind Islington Giving: “We sawa fantastic opportunity to pool our expertise andleverage funds and each other’s reputations.

“Underpinning our thinking is an absolute belief that itis in the sum of our parts that we can help most.Whilst independently we and others can help goodthings to happen, we can achieve so much moretogether. And it will be in extending this spirit, inbringing people and organisations together, thatIslington Giving can achieve its objectives most easily.Collaboration, partnership, the sum of our parts – callit what you like – is not only important to us but it is adistinctive feature,” says Morris.There is more than a whiff of Big Society aboutIslington Giving, which takes full responsibility foritself, including raising £3m over the next three yearsto fund the work it wants to do.

Islington Statistics

• Islington has the highest rate of suicide for men inEngland

• The number of five to 17-year-olds with mental healthdisorders is 36% higher than the national average

• 3,000 people registered with a doctor in Islington havea diagnosis of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or otherpsychoses.

• The substance misuse rate for 15 to 64-years-olds ismore than two-and-a-half times the national average.

Photographer: Simon Townsley


65 live alone; 51% attend private schools, but of thoseattending state schools, the proportion receiving freeschool meals is double the national average.

Homelessness, social isolation, disability, the rehabilitationof ex-offenders are just some of the poignant issues beingaddressed every day by the 400 plus charities.

To show real ‘localism’ in action, guests were encouragedto ‘pledge’ between £100 and £10,000 to specific localcauses, such as youth and education and the arts. Someasked for their pledges to be donated to specific charitiesthat had impressed them on the night.

“But the fundraising was secondary to the otheropportunities the event delivered. It gave a chance for usto start new donor relationships and develop existing oneswhich is incredibly important. It was especially pleasingto see so many new faces,” said Raphaely. He said since theevent he had received calls from local residents with familytrusts, interested in partnering with the foundation.

Organising committee member Sophie de Schwarzburg-Gunther said: “The event takes neighbourhoodphilanthropy to a whole new level. Many small charitiescan’t afford their own fundraising or marketing staff sothis is an excellent way to raise their profile and raise themuch needed cash which can make such a difference topeople’s lives.”

Since its formation the foundation has committed nearly£500,000 to 25 charities. An Endowment Fund has beenset up to provide a lasting solution for the future. As allthe foundation’s administrative costs are covered by localstatutory and infrastructure agencies, and by grant-giving trusts, 100% of gifts can be given to the donor’schosen cause.

Donor Emma Carlton-Smith of Martin’s Properties(Chelsea) Ltd, whose family trust assists SMART (a localcharity supporting disabled people), said: “Attending thisevent helped me tell others how much local difference the

Case study: Kensington and Chelsea Foundation – Bringing local philanthropy to life

Kensington and Chelsea Foundation’s stylish‘Party at Saatchi’ Art Gallery on September 27th,held to bring donors and potential donors face-to-face with the charities working on thefrontline of their community, took localphilanthropy to a new level.

“Creating a buzzy and stylish social event where localswere able to meet the charities working in theircommunities gave us a way to validate the work we do and let donors and potential donors hear, see andcelebrate the work they are doing and understand whatneeds to be done,” says Jeremy Raphaely, director ofthe three-year-old foundation.

The 350 guests who attended enjoyed entertainmentfrom the many organisations the foundation supports.Guests were able to witness how they are making adifference to their neighbourhood. The talentedperformers included jazz vocalist Aneesa Chaudhry,Portobello Dance School, Opera Holland Park and theWest End Gospel Choir. Guests also admired artworkfrom Age Concern Kensington and Chelsea’s ‘SeldomSeen’ project which featured borough-wide residents intheir 80s and 90s who are housebound and isolated.

Raphaely said: “The party gave us a chance to show theauthenticity of the work being done. It was a party witha difference. People often support charities because ofsome personal experience with the cause they serve.But the one thing which unites all of us is our personalconnection with the Royal Borough of Kensington andChelsea where such dramatic contrasts exist betweenpeople living in the same neighbourhood.”

The borough’s statistics paint a vivid picture of itsinequality: average life expectancy is only 73 in thenorth of the borough, nearly 11 years less than in thesouth; 31% of the private housing units in Kensingtonand Chelsea do not meet the government’s DecentHomes Standard; 62% of its residents over the age of

Kensington and Chelsea Foundation has enabled us tomake. It means a lot to us as donors that 100% of whatwe give to the foundation goes to the charities they helpus choose, and that they monitor our donations and giveus regular feedback.”

Tim Coleridge, foundation chairman, said: “We are trulygrateful to everyone who supported us on the night. Theaim of this event was to raise the profile of the fantasticcharities in the borough and bring donors closer to thecharities they have hand-picked together with ourfoundation.”

www.thekandcfoundation.com

Tim Coleridge (left) foundation chairman and Sir Cyril Taylor GBE

(right) a generous sponsor of the evening.

© Michael Tomlinson


By Cheryl Chapman

Community Foundation Networkchairman Matthew Bowcock shares hisvision for the organisation and an aim tounite its 56 members with a chant formore ‘locally-managed philanthropy’.

Chants and circumstance

Matthew Bowcock, a self-confessed ‘reconstructed’ serialentrepreneur who founded, built and sold technology andgenetics companies in Australia, the US and the UK istoday an ardent and active community philanthropist. Hebelieves passionately that “philanthropy is a privilege”.

As chairman of the Community Foundation Network(CFN) and co-founder of Surrey-focused Hazelhurst Trustwith wife Dr Helen Bowcock, he spends the majority ofhis time working to extend that privilege to people of allgiving abilities.

In his CFN role he is, he says, “cheerleading a movement”– a statement that is more controversial than it at firstsounds. The word “movement” represents a fundamentalchange in the nature of the Community FoundationNetwork, that comprises 56 community foundations, witha footprint that extends to 95% of the UK.

Historically, it has been a group of quite different sizedand ‘shaped’ organisations that provide a dynamic connectionbetween philanthropists and local causes and charities.

The challenge for the past five years has been tointroduce consistency and quality across the network andthat job is “now 80% done” says Bowcock.

The saying ‘you have seen one foundation, you have seenone foundation,’ is one that Bowcock says has been largelydispelled.

A man given to analogy, he explains the fundamentalchange he is helping bring about. “We used to be like agroup of people milling in the street, whereas now we aremore and more like a demonstration or a march, allchanting the same thing.”

The chant and direction is: ‘locally-managed philanthropy’.

It’s a subtle but important difference from the term ‘localphilanthropy’ for which community foundations areknown. Bowcock’s strategy is to create a biggerphilanthropy pie by offering donors access to the fullspectrum of philanthropy opportunities in a local setting.In growing donor-centric philanthropy he says it willnaturally follow that community-focussed philanthropywill grow too.

“If a donor asks for something and it is possible, then Iwant foundations to say ‘yes’. The answer must not alwaysbe ‘create a donor advised fund at the communityfoundation’, but to listen to what donors really want toachieve and help them to do that.”


The services provided by Community Foundations may inthe next few years even include a social investmentoption. Bowcock is working with other social financeorganisations such as Key Fund and Big Issue Invest, tocreate a social fund with a matched aspect to draw ininvestment to start up new local social enterprises. It willgive donors the scope to use their skills and expertise aswell as money to support community or other projectsthrough an investment approach.

Bowcock continues in optimistic vein on the appetite forgiving locally. “There is definitely a growing interest,” hesays and points to CFN’s recent performance as evidence.

In 2010 its endowment stood at £244.5m, a 48% increaseon the previous year’s figure of £151m. And in the lastyear 649 new funds have been set up, representing a 50%increase on the previous year, and accounting for £37m ofnew giving. It now supports 23,400 donors, 2,456 of themmajor donors.

One reason for the growth he says is the emergence of anew profile of philanthropists. The baby boomers whohave come of philanthropic age, having prospered underfree market Thatcherism and successive governments,and now, says Bowcock, “find themselves comfortably offand wanting to give. They are entrepreneurial and want tobe more engaged and in touch with their giving and see itsimpact for themselves. Local philanthropy lets people bemore involved.”

Local environments are also a good setting in which tolearn how to give effectively says Bowcock.“Philanthropists are not born. There is a very clear learningprocess and giving locally is a good place to start.”

Even philanthropic phenomenon Bill Gates recommendsstarting locally. “You can see what works and understandthe intervention points and the effect they can have. Youmay have a small pot of money and you can learn overtime whether you want to make a large difference to asmall amount of people, say take a group of disabledpeople on holiday, or a small difference to a large amountof people – campaigning to give them the right to usedisabled loos. Local giving is where you can build skillsand achieve the greatest gratification,” says Bowcock.

CFN is working to codify the learning that happenswithin their own foundations so they can replicatesuccessful and effective programmes and projects with theaim of providing proven off-the-peg solutions where theright conditions exist. Bowcock gives an example of aNorfolk project, Kickstart Mopeds, that overcame theproblem a lack of local transport infrastructure waspresenting to unemployed people who lived in remoteareas of the county and so couldn’t get to job interviews.

The scheme allowed interviewees to borrow scooters forup to a year to get to job and training interviews. If theygot the job or were accepted to a training programme theywere able to buy the scooter in small instalments.

“Philanthropists are not born. There is a very clear learning process and giving locally is a good place to start.”

“Something as simple as providing a means of transportsolved the issue of unemployment for some people. Ourthinking is that the same remote conditions probably existelsewhere, in counties that are geographically similar andwhere people face the same issue so perhaps theprogramme can be rolled out there.”

Bowcock is a firm believer that the solutions to communityproblems lie within the community. “People have themeans to solve their own problems better than outsideagencies. They know their communities intimately; theyknow better the reasons for the issues they face and how tosolve them if given the chance. Elected authorities have toomuch power to judge. People need to take back power.”

Quoting from Cormac Russell’s work on Asset BasedCommunity Development (ABCD) in which local peoplewere asked what percentage of community problems theybelieved they could solve once they had audited their ownapplicable skills. The answer was 70%. When the samequestion was asked of outside agencies the answer was 30%.

Bowcock is a keen advocate of ABCD, a US methodologythat draws upon existing community strengths to buildstronger, more sustainable communities for the future,which is being adopted in some programmes in the UK.He is keen to see it implemented in the UK byphilanthropists through the network. Building on theskills of local residents, the power of local associations,and the supportive functions of local institutions, ABCD is


constructed to put power in the hands of citizens to dealwith their own problems.

It smacks of ‘Big Society’ thinking, but Bowcock prefersthe term ‘engaged society’, though acknowledges a newmood for active participation and more space for this asgovernment funding falls away. “Local philanthropy hasbeen the poor cousin of philanthropy for a long time beinglargely state-funded. But we are now at a tipping pointwhen the nature of our society fundamentally changes,such as the creation of the welfare state in 1948, or theminer’s strike in 1984,” he says, and offers anotheranalogy before he leaves: “It’s like when you are in a boatat sea and the tide has changed. You can’t necessarily spotthe moment when the tide changes but you realise it isgoing with you rather than against you. I think theclimate is now in our favour.”

Community Foundations

Quality accredited Community Foundations offer aphilanthropy advice service plus customised grantportfolio development. The benefits to donors arethat Community Foundations are a fast and flexibleway of helping those with an existing charitabletrust or those who do not have a giving vehicle setup for them.

Community Foundations provide advice and learningsupport, help with identifying effective organisationsto fund, handle admin, and work to standardsendorsed by The Charity Commission for Englandand Wales. They also provide networking and donoreducation opportunities. As well as philanthropyadvice, Community Foundations offer fund design,outreach services, handle enquiries, grantapplications, carry out due diligence, make grants onbehalf of donors, and monitor, evaluate and report onfunded projects.

To find out more visit the website www.communityfoundations.org.uk

“It’s like when you are in aboat at sea and the tide haschanged. You can’t necessarilyspot the moment when thetide changes but you realise itis going with you rather thanagainst you. I think theclimate is now in our favour.”


by Cheryl Chapman

Government and philanthropy share anenigmatic relationship.

It has been understood in different ways:some believe state funding ‘crowds out’philanthropy; tax incentives may or maynot boost giving; it is generally agreedphilanthropy is not a substitute for statefunding and could never replace it, whilephilanthropists do not like being led bygovernment policy.

Birkenhead’s Labour MP Frank Field, in his 2008 AllenLane lecture, described philanthropy as ‘a counterpoise’ togovernment. Field suggests the role of philanthropy“above all else is in establishing centres of power andinfluence counter-poised to governments. It is in this rolethat philanthropy becomes a crucial part of sustaining thefreedom which a thriving civil society bestows on its citizens.”

But there are grounds to re-think the boundaries of therelationship on the frontier of community funding.

Under a new localism agenda, the building of Big Society,the dismal economic climate, and recent communityunrest, government and philanthropists are prioritisingcommunity. They share similar visions: a wish for morecohesive, happy and healthy neighbourhoods; theeradication of poverty, crime and inequality, the creationof sustainable community organisations and a will forindividuals and local groups to take ownership of theircommunal lives. Both believe in a grassroots up approach.

In recent months we have seen a welter of governmentactions that have put in place the building blocks to helpcommunities and individuals take ownership andencourage philanthropy in the community, including:

• the publication of the wide ranging Localism Bill whichshifts power from central government to communities,

• the retention and introduction of tax incentives suchas Community Investment Tax Relief (see page 12)and another to encourage legacy giving,

• the delivery of new funds such as the £80mCommunities First Programme to help the mostdeprived communities, the £30m Transforming LocalInfrastructure Fund, a £10m innovation in givingfund, and the £55m Catalyst endowment buildingmatched fund to support arts organisations and toencourage philanthropic funds

• the newly announced Social Action Fund, worth over£20m, that will offer grants of £100,000 and more toprojects across England to expand volunteering andgiving of time, money, knowledge and assets.

• the introduction of the Giving White Paper to “increaselevels of giving and mutual support in society and catalysea culture shift that makes social action a social norm”.

• the creation of Big Society Capital to develop theinfrastructure for a new social economy, bolster socialenterprise and draw in investment,

Government and philanthropy finding common ground?


• and the launch of social investment bonds to releasenew capital funding into socially-focussed initiatives.

Many of these actions are part of a government visionthat calls openly on individual philanthropists and trustsand foundations to work in partnership with it to findnew ways to fund and foster better communities.

In launching the Giving White Paper at Downing Streeton Monday (May 23), Francis Maude, minister for theCabinet Office, said: “The building of a bigger strongersociety will not be done by government but by citizens.However, it will not emerge overnight and government hasto play a role in supporting it. That is why, after levels ofgiving have flat lined for years, this government is takingaction, introducing policies to make giving give back, cutred tape and spark innovation. These changes form part ofour desire to build a big society, where power isdecentralised, public services are opened up and socialaction is encouraged.”

But there remains scepticism from funders and the ThirdSector around Big Society “as a fig leaf” for cuts. Whilemillions of government pounds will help communitygroups to build the Big Society, charities expect to losebillions as a result of spending cuts. The latest NCVOdata predicted figure is £2.8bn, although a TUC studyfound that in the first year of cuts losses actuallyamounted to just £100m.

A Cabinet Office spokesman said in response to ‘fig leaf ’claims: “Big Society offers the voluntary sector many newopportunities to grow.

“Our reforms will allow the voluntary sector to bid forpublic service contracts worth billions of pounds. BigSociety Capital has launched with an expected £600m to

give the sector access to much needed finance, which willhelp them expand and bid for these new contracts. And we’redoing more to support giving and philanthropy includingmeasures in the budget estimated to be worth £600m overthe lifetime of the Parliament. This is just the start.”

In a recent seminar focussing on how to promote theculture of giving hosted by Tory think tank PolicyExchange, Gareth Davies, head of the Office for CivilSociety (OCS), offered a view on how philanthropists andgovernment interact. He said government was not thereto “direct or corral philanthropy” but to build on the “edgy,experimental” work that philanthropists could do. Headded, government could scale up philanthropy-fundedpilot projects that were proving successful, pointing to thefour newly-launched social impact bonds aimed at savingthe country millions by targeting and supporting deprivedfamilies.

And in an open letter to the sector in early October, NickHurd, Minister for Civil Society, scoped out the role forphilanthropy in Big Society, saying: “We believe that thedebate around the Big Society is about encouragingindividuals and organisations to think about thecontribution they can make whether that is in the form ofphilanthropy, and social investment, or giving up timeand expertise through volunteering or community service.

“It is also about enabling people to have a voice in shapingthe communities and areas around them throughmobilising local networks (community organisers) andencouraging civil responsibility (National Citizens Service)”.

Philanthropists have voiced optimism at the government’scommitment to the genuine support of philanthropy –Tom Hughes-Hallett, chairman of the independent

Philanthropy Review that made its report in June, is oneof them.

However, Dr Beth Breeze, philanthropy researcher andauthor, says philanthropists are unlikely to be swayedinto acting a certain way through governmentpronouncements: “The relationship between philanthropyand public expenditure is complicated. Donors do not wantto simply act as a substitute or a ‘gap plugger’ for thingsthat would otherwise be paid from general taxation, butnor do they prioritise acting as some sort of balancing actto governmental decisions. One definition of a mega-donoris someone who can make their own decisions about whatto fund without reference to the decisions of others, be theyfellow donors or public officials. The US academic PaulSchervish calls this the ‘hyper agency’ of the wealthy donor.It means that many philanthropists march to the beat oftheir own drum, without reference to the vagaries ofgovernment policy.

“Philanthropy is driven by personal passions not bygovernment policy, so philanthropists are unlikely to makesignificant changes to their giving in the light ofpronouncements by politicians. That said, contemporaryphilanthropists are interested in maximising the valueand impact of their donations, so opportunities to getmatched funding or develop partnerships with publicfunds are often attractive, though it is difficult to discern ifsuch initiatives actually prompt philanthropic acts orsimply alter their timing.”

Nick Hurd MP

Minister for Civil Society


by Nick Perks, Environmental Funders Network

Charity did begin at home. Until the20th century, most philanthropic activitywas concerned with proximate need, fromthe ancient livery companies caring formembers of their craft, to almshouses forthe elderly, to trusts bequeathed for thepoor of the parish or other groups in need.

A world of difference through local giving

However, there is also a long tradition of charity whichseeks to care for those further afield, either directly (theInternational Committee of the Red Cross dates from1863) or by tackling underlying causes (Anti-SlaveryInternational was founded 1839). In 2010, the Britishpublic gave an extraordinary £106m to the DisastersEmergency Committee for Haiti.

Environmental concerns are also both local andinternational. Care for particular landscapes and localcommunities has motivated environmentalists from JohnMuir to Richard Mabey. Yet, at least as far back as RachelCarson’s seminal 1962 book Silent Spring, which firstbrought to general public awareness the dangers ofpesticides, environmental scientists and activists havedrawn attention to systemic problems. Pollution does notrecognise state boundaries, and we all depend on theresources of one world.

Our latest publication, Funding Locally, ThinkingGlobally, draws on both these traditions – the desire tomake a difference locally, and the concern for the commongood. The booklet brings together six case studies of localprojects that are also contributing to a more sustainableworld.

The examples are very diverse. They have been supportedby different donors, and tackle different issues in differentways. However, these local projects with a global outlookshare some common characteristics.

These are all projects that are planning for thefuture. The Howsham Mill project in North Yorkshire isnot merely rescuing an old building, it is installing anArchimedean screw that will generate both cleanelectricity and sustainable revenue. In Over Haddon inthe Peak District, the easy course of action would havebeen to replace the deteriorating village hall with thecheapest option; instead they have built one of the mostenergy efficient building in the country – reducingrunning costs just as energy prices continue to climb.

The projects meet multiple needs. The TynedaleTransition group builds social networks as well asreducing environmental impact. It is just one example ofthe Transition Town movement, a community-ledresponse to climate change which began in Totnes in2005, and is now active in many countries around theworld. Fishing for Litter South West benefits thecommercial fishing fleet by reducing the damage causedby marine litter, whilst simultaneously improving the

Nick Perks


marine environment. It’s a model which is beingreplicated in other fisheries.

They offer incredible value for money. All of theprojects rely heavily on local volunteers and the passionthat people have for their own communities. A grant ofjust £2,000 to Stop Stansted Expansion in the earlystages of the campaign helped to build momentum anddraw in other donations and voluntary effort. Seven yearsof hard campaigning later, the incoming coalitiongovernment reversed the policy of aggressive airportexpansion.

There will always be needs, challenges and opportunitiesfor philanthropy locally, nationally and internationally. Asthe world becomes ever more interconnected, there maybe a temptation for philanthropists to put all their moneyinto Westminster, or Brussels, or Geneva. However,funding locally does not mean funding parochially. Localcommunities are a place for both innovation andimplementation. Local projects can be scaled up, localideas can go viral, and local campaigns can tip thebalance in national policy decisions. Everywhere, thereare local people who have global vision, and want to bepart of building a better world.

Funding Locally, Thinking Globally launched at theEnvironmental Funders Network Autumn lunch on 11thOctober. It is available from:http://www.greenfunders.org/wp-content/uploads/Funding-Locally-Thinking-Globally-Final.pdf

Nick Perks is coordinator of the Environmental FundersNetwork, an informal network of trusts, foundations andphilanthropists interested in environmental issues.

[email protected]

www.greenfunders.org

Campaigners from Stop Stansted Expansion. The organisation was initially funded by a £2,000 grant thathelped draw in donations and build momentum for thesuccessful crusade. © Stop Standsted Expansion


Understanding the complex, multi-layered funding landscape is vital forthose who want to maximise efficacy.London’s funding ecology is particularlycomplex and here London Funders’director Gaynor Humphreys maps thechallenges for those wanting to supportthe capital’s community projects.

Funding London: a special case

In recent weeks the London tube map has been in thenews. The internet has been abuzz with new versions toaddress the increased complexity of London’s railwaysnow the Docklands Light Railway and the Overgroundneed to be fitted in. None yet rivals Harry Beck’sschematic map, constantly updated since 1931, but effortis still going in to finding the perfect solution to clarifyingLondon’s more complicated connections.

Many of London’s funders have been working together fora decade or so to build metaphorical maps of London’scomplex demography, needs and assets in order tostrengthen their responsiveness. They came together inLondon Funders (LF) – across sectoral boundaries –bringing the London Boroughs together with foundations,Lottery distributors and corporate funders, to draw oneach other’s experience to strengthen their own individualapproaches. Some of the complexity they seek to cutthrough is not unique to London: grant-makers these daysneed to understand commissioners and social lenders – the groups they fund grapple with all these regimes. So getting to know each other and understand theirlanguage and the procedures is a practical part of whatfunders need. London Funders is a platform for sharedknowledge, opportunities for funders to get to know eachother and learn about each others’ policies and programmes

Gaynor Humphreys

philanthropy uk : inspiring givingPhilanthropy UK Quarterly : Issue 45, Autumn 2011 funding london : page 29

and explore scope for collaboration.

Why do funders feel so strongly that in London they needsome power-assistance to get to grips with their funding?London is a complex place. It is the biggest conurbation inEurope. It is the most culturally diverse city in the world.We have the largest refugee population in the UK,encompassing great diversity, and the largest settledLGBT community. We have central government focusedhere, much of the country’s media and corporatestructures headquartered in London, and many of theworld’s financial services. Unlike other parts of Englandwe still have three very distinct tiers of government (theGreater London Authority having survived, with somewhatenhanced powers, the government’s recent cull of regionalstructures while 33 boroughs divide the Londonpopulation between them for local services). Funding tosupport Londoners well in this complex environment teststhe knowledge and skill of experienced funders.

London, as a whole is the most prosperous region inEngland and while aspects of London’s diversity are itsstrength, digging deeper into the statistics shows thelargest proportion of children living in poverty, higherunemployment than the UK average, especially amongyoung people, and the biggest inequalities in wealth.Trust for London’s London Poverty Profile(www.londonspovertyprofile.org.uk) has become a vitalsource of analysed data that not only substantiate thedetail of these painful statistics but help funders keep ontop of trends – that child poverty, for example, is nowgrowing faster in Outer London and in households wheresomeone is in work.

Cripplegate Foundation in Islington, one of London’soldest grant-makers, has researched poverty in its area –one where the inequalities between rich and poor are attheir starkest - to deepen its understanding of the reasonsfor poverty in its patch (often associated with disability,mental illness or limited employment skills). Their workis now driven forward at many levels – continuingameliorative, urgent support to address need andincreasingly also funding services which offer newopportunities and skills to local people; collaborating withthe local council in policy development, e.g. in a debtstrategy; and building a coalition of local funders to raisenew resources from wealthier local people and businesses(Islington Giving: www.islingtongiving.org.uk). See page 19.

Funders ask London Funders for a regular digest ofinformation about London and about each other’sprogrammes and policies that will help them rapidly keepup to speed. LF’s members’ events concentrate onemerging issues or areas of practice: a meeting to providea rapid introduction to the personalisation agenda inadult social care helped funders understand theimplications of big structural changes on the horizon forvoluntary organisations working with disabled people,older people and others; what we did not expect as anoutcome from this same event was to find that boroughofficers working to develop good structures and systemsfor personal budgets were doing this in isolation fromother boroughs – an informal support network emerged.

At a more tangible level, our project group that broughttogether funders interested in supporting VCSinfrastructure (the organisations that help keep frontline

services informed, trained, coordinated and supported),played a valuable role when Big Lottery Fund’s Basisprogramme and Capacitybuilders funding started. It wasthis group which provided a funder perspective on themyriad generalist and specialist second tier organisationsin London and helped the specific funders develop astrategy to direct effective support: no other Englandregion was able to involve funders in kick-startingstrategic funding in these programmes as effectively.

A recent discussion in our Olympics project group hasbrought some funders together to look at the feasibility of a legacy fund for London following the 2012 Games – a permanent addition to the resources in London forcommunity-based sport.

A chilling recent use has been made of the Tube map tohighlight the needs of Londoners. If you live eight JubileeLine stops east of Westminster, for example, you haveeight years knocked off your life expectancy. Many ofLondon’s funders are alert to the challenges and bysharing what they know and collaborating in what theydo are aiming to work their funding smarter and harderto London’s benefit.

Gaynor Humphreys, Director, London Funders

London Funders welcomes membership enquiries frominstitutional and individual funders andphilanthropists: [email protected]

philanthropy uk : inspiring givingPhilanthropy UK Quarterly : Issue 45, Autumn 2011 EuroView: page 30

By Lisa Hehenberger, research director of theEuropean Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA)

EVPA will hold its 7th annual conferencein Turin in November this year and thiscalls for some reflection on the evolutionof the industry in the past years.European Venture Philanthropy hasmatured from involving a small group ofventure capitalists and foundations in itsearly days to engaging a wider range ofplayers, including government, financialinstitutions, corporates, academics,advisors and multilateral organisations.

What has attracted these players to the field? We havedetected two key trends that are shaping the venturephilanthropy field and that are providing entry points fora number of new players:

• Clusters are forming around particular social sectorsand the target sectors are broadening to includeenvironment, culture, medical research andhealthcare.

• Venture philanthropists are developing best practice ina range of tools to support particular types of socialpurpose organisations – ranging from financinginstruments and non-financial support to themeasurement of social impact

When I first investigated the sector focus of Europeanventure philanthropists in 2008 for my dissertation, usingthe EVPA directory, I found that a large percentage (43%)of VP organisations did not have a clear sector focus. In2011, EVPA's Knowledge Centre has been conducting asurvey of the VP Industry in Europe and will present themain results at the annual conference in November. Inthis recent survey, we found that less than 10% of the

EuroView: Emerging communities in venture philanthropy

venture philanthropists surveyed did not have a sectorfocus. Several VP organisations explained that when theystarted, they had to demonstrate the VP model andtherefore they chose not to focus on any particular sector.Having a broad-based portfolio allowed them to appeal tomany different types of stakeholders.

However, some VP organisations started to narrow thefocus of their portfolios when they felt that they hadproven that the model worked. VP funds that are focusedon one (or a few) sector(s) develop expertise and canincrease their understanding of the investees. In terms ofperformance measurement, it is more difficult to measureand demonstrate impact across a ‘mixed bag’ portfolio.

Another reason to focus on a specific sector is that theleverage and impact of the investment can be greater.Interestingly, we are also observing the emergence ofsome new clusters forming around sectors that had notbeen heavily targeted by venture philanthropy, includingculture and medical research.

In medical research, the pioneer venture philanthropistwas Stiftung Charité, and we have recently added several

Lisa Hehenberger

philanthropy uk : inspiring givingPhilanthropy UK Quarterly : Issue 45, Autumn 2011 EuroView: page 31

new members including Fundación Pasqual Maragall and Nextech that focus on Alzheimer's disease and cancer, respectively.

Venture philanthropy is filling a funding gap in the drugdevelopment chain between basic research that is oftenfunded by governments and disease foundations, andcommercially viable solutions that are funded by venturecapitalists. Venture philanthropists targeting the samesectors have much to learn from each other and fromother players with experience in that particular sector,including foundations, corporations, social sector actors,venture capitalists and government.

For instance, in a recent EVPA workshop on impactmeasurement, participants were keen to collaborate ondefining common metrics for the sub-sectors in VP.Indeed, collaborative efforts are on the rise. Interestingexamples include foundations and VP funds co-investing(Fondazione CRT and Oltre Venture have co-invested inItalian social housing projects), VP funds managinggovernment funds (Impetus and The Sutton Trust in theUK will manage a government fund focused ondisadvantaged children), and VP funds engaging theportfolio companies of their private equity funders to

contribute non-financial support (IKARE engaged IK'sportfolio companies CEVA, Gardenia and Kwintet toaddress the issue of sleeping sickness in Uganda).

In early days, venture philanthropy was defined asapplying venture capital principles to the social sector.Definitions have evolved and so have practices. EVPA nowdefines venture philanthropy as a methodology thatworks to build stronger investee organisations with asocietal purpose (SPOs) by providing them with bothfinancial and non-financial support in order to increasetheir societal impact. As the industry matures andinvolves a wider variety of players, it has developed itsown practices that are less tightly linked to venturecapital.

Venture philanthropists have taken the term ‘tailored’financing very seriously. Although grants still remain themain financing tool, venture philanthropists have workedhard to determine which financing tools are most effectiveat a particular stage in the evolution of an SPO. The non-financial support is no less ‘tailored’, ranging fromstrategic consulting and coaching, to assistance withfundraising, governance issues and marketing to name afew, depending on the particular needs of the SPO.

Providing access to networks is often quoted as a keycontribution of VP funders, leading to the success offollow-up funding and more effective non-financialsupport. Many financial institutions and corporatefoundations that are rapidly moving into the impactinvesting/venture philanthropy arena are keen to engagewith more experienced venture philanthropists who canshare some of their accumulated knowledge.

This year's conference programme reflects the trendsdepicted above by hosting a number of roundtables onsocial sectors and on VP practices, apart from theworkshops and panel sessions. Find out more at:www.evpa.eu.com/2011-turin

Lisa Hehenberger is the Research Director of theEuropean Venture Philanthropy Association - theEuropean membership association for high engagementgrant-making and social investment. Lisa runs EVPA'sKnowledge Centre that conducts and publishes research,organises workshops, participates at practitioner andacademic conferences, and collects and disseminates dataand knowledge.

www.evpa.eu.com

“EVPA now defines venture philanthropy as a methodologythat works to build stronger investee organisations with asocietal purpose.”

philanthropy uk : inspiring givingPhilanthropy UK Quarterly : Issue 45, Autumn 2011 my philanthropic journey : page 32

I have gained a lot from life, a lot of experience and a lotof material things and I wanted to give something back tosociety. I think it is all our responsibility to give somethingback, whatever our position in life; we can always helpothers in some way.

I tell this to the young people too – they can make a vastdifference by supporting others and I believe they will gainmore than they give!

It isn’t just about giving money though. It is aboutproviding leadership for our young people, inspiring andmotivating them, showing them they can make a differenceand improve their lives. We need our community to investin these kids – they are our future, we have to guide andnurture them!

I have always tried to support charity in some way – evenin the early days of my businesses when I didn’t havemuch money – I could do other things like give time andencourage others to get involved too.

As the businesses grew I was able to give more and weregularly donated in response to appeals and personalapproaches. However, as things started to snowball Irealised it is actually a big job giving out money. If it isn’t

Young at heart...

My philanthropic journey

by Jack Petchey

Jack Petchey CBE, 87, was born andbrought up in the East End of London.Through car sales and propertydevelopment he became one of the mostsuccessful businessmen in Britain.Through the Jack Petchey Foundation,formed in 1999, he has given over £65mto youth programmes. The foundationexists to raise the aspiration of youngpeople to help them take advantage ofopportunities and play a full part in society.

done wisely then you could be doing more bad than good!That’s when I decided to set up the Jack Petchey Foundation.

Once the foundation was established we could engagemore creatively with charities in order to try and ensuregood practice in our decision-making and to influence achange in society. There is more to philanthropy than justgiving money to good causes. It helps the charities tosharpen their practice if you get them to think about whatthey are trying to achieve and ask questions to help themachieve that more effectively. In this way we get arelationship with the charities and can help by bringingour expertise from the business world too.

As the foundation developed and the young people wrote tome or spoke to me at events and told me how their liveshad changed – that’s when I realised the real impact wecan have.

It is not about giving away lots of money – it’s aboutmaking a difference and if we can inspire, change the wayyoung people think about themselves and help themachieve more in life – we are changing a generation,shaping future society for the better and that is what isimportant.

In giving locally, you have to be a realist – you can’t doeverything and solve the problems of the world, but thatdoesn’t mean you can’t do anything! You have to do whatyou can and so for me it was best to go local! To work inthe places I have connections with – London, Essex andPortugal where some of my businesses are. That way wehave an intense impact, our programmes all build on eachother rather than being watered down and we have evenmore opportunity to reach and influence our target group.

The advice I have for others wanting to make a differenceis to be clear about what you want to achieve, set out yourobjectives, be prepared to take the occasional risk… andgive, evaluate and enjoy!

www.jackpetcheyfoundation.org.uk

philanthropy uk : inspiring givingPhilanthropy UK Quarterly : Issue 45, Autumn 2011 my philanthropic journey : page 33

We don’t really see ourselves as a pure grant-maker – butas an investor in young people. We often lead thedevelopment of new programmes and seek charities whocan work with us to achieve our goals to inspire youth.

Our three largest youth programmes are the:

Jack Petchey Achievement Awards – this gets almost£2.5m into grassroots youth organisations and schoolsevery year, in order to inspire and reward young people’sachievements. The young people are central to the decisionmaking and the £200 award they receive has to beinvested in their youth organisation – so they get a sense ofphilanthropy too.

The Jack Petchey SpeakOut Challenge – trains almost20,000 15-year-olds in public speaking each year – this raises their confidence, self-esteem and ability tocommunicate. They then go on to compete in borough andregional events to find an overall ‘public speaker of theyear’ – it is magical to see how this helps them develop.

Step into Dance – offers professional weekly dance trainingafter school to almost 5000 young people who otherwisewould not have the opportunity. Young men on the verge ofexclusion from schools, young people with disabilities haveall learnt team work, discipline and found a way toexpress themselves publicly through dance.

We have lots of smaller programmes too – basically ourstrategy is to focus on the impact and if it inspires youngpeople, is good value for money and can be replicated – wewill test it out!

“I am often overwhelmed by the joyof giving!”

We are concerned with measurable impact – you have toknow the difference you make. There is no point inthrowing money at an idea if you can’t see what differenceit makes!

I am often overwhelmed by the joy of giving! When you seethe difference that the programmes have made in a youngperson’s life – and you know that they have been able toreach a greater potential through that – it is hard not toget emotional.

Recently a youngster wrote and performed a rap at the endof a dance production that involved 400 young people. Hesaid “I am looking at you, and you are looking at me,saying this is someone that I inspired. Positivity and loveis required, to make something this big and this great.”

To know that this young man felt inspired and to know hefelt someone cared enough to invest in him and inthousands of other young people’s growth is the greatestreward one can ever have!

Jack Petchey and students from the Petchey

Academy in Hackney, which specialises in

health, care and medical sciences

philanthropy uk : inspiring givingPhilanthropy UK Quarterly : Issue 45, Autumn 2011 publications, reviews and notices : page 34

One of the perks of the role of publications editor ofPhilanthropy UK, is being asked to recommend goodbooks about philanthropy. Since its publication in 2007, Ihave regularly named Joel Fleishman’s insightful andthought-provoking book ‘The Foundation: A GreatAmerican Secret’ in my ‘top 3 must-reads’ (the other twobeing ‘Strategic Giving’ by Peter Frumkin and‘Philanthrocapitalism’ by Matthew Bishop and MichaelGreen – though I always wince over the title of the latterand even more so over the truly dreadful subtitle of thefirst print run: ‘How the rich can save the world and whywe should let them’, wince, wince).

So I approached Fleishman’s new book, co-authored withThomas J. Tierney, with a dollop of enthusiasm and a sideorder of scepticism. Could the man who wrote such acomprehensive and knowledgeable analysis of the history

of American philanthropy and its contemporary relevance,really be the right person to write an accessible ‘how to’book for donors? Even the covers of each book speak toentirely different audiences and indicate dissimilar tonesof voice – the older book bearing heavy font, dark coloursand a gallery of black and white photographs of historicgreats, whilst the new book jacket has clean lines, whitespace and a quirky design. Of course one shouldn’t judgea book by its cover, but it usually signals something aboutthe sort of audience the author hopes to attract.

Fortunately, ‘Give Smart’ proves that Fleishman is adeptat addressing both types of audience: the heavier-weightintellectuals (unsurprising as he is a professor of law andpublic policy at Duke University) and the more thoughtfulbreed of modern philanthropists who hope to use theircharitable donations to achieve maximum impact in theirchosen sphere of concern. No doubt Tierney’s day-job as anon-profit advisor helps to counterbalance any potentialivory tower inclinations. Indeed, in the preface theauthors express their wish “to bridge theory and practice”as well as to reconcile the similarly disparate worlds of“business and academia, grant making and grant receiving”.

Despite being a book aimed at helping donors with the“awesome responsibility” of giving money away, it begins

Publications, reviews and notices

Give Smart: Philanthropy that gets resultsThomas J. Tierney and Joel L. FleishmanNew York: Public Affairs, April 2011. 257pp. Hardcover.ISBN 978-1-58648-895-6. £12.99www.publicaffairsbooks.com

reviewby Dr Beth Breeze, publications editor


with a rather disheartening statement that“philanthropy’s natural state is underperformance”. Butthis pessimistic pronouncement is there for a purpose: toremind readers that generosity alone is not enoughbecause, “outstanding philanthropy is distinguished bywhat it achieves as well as by the act of charity itself”.Combining “heartfelt generosity” with a “rigorousapproach” is, according to the authors, the secret toachieving the book’s title – ‘giving smart’.

The hand of the academic is evident in the book’s welcomeadmission that there is nothing distinctively new aboutthe desire to achieve tangible philanthropic success.Andrew Carnegie is rightly cited as an historic example ofa donor whose philanthropic work cannot be castigatedfor careless giving, despite the many a-historicalcommentators who appear to believe that ‘newphilanthropy’ has a monopoly on strategic thinking.However it is clearly true to note that societal changes sinceCarnegie’s time (not least the rapid spread of informationtechnology) provides 21st century philanthropists with awider array of tools to access information, process dataand analyse impacts, which ought to enable a firmer gripon measuring and achieving results.

A stand-out section of the book describes and addressesthe ‘non-profit starvation cycle’, which is said to occur

when donors refuse to fund overheads and imposearbitrary conditions on those they support. Examples andconsequence of these ‘costs on capital’ are worth quotingat length:

“The philanthropist who thinks he knows how to run anafter-school programme better than the folks who havebeen doing just that for twenty-five years and insists onimposing his strategic ideas; the grant-maker whoannually requires her grantees to fill out 50 page reportsabout how the grant was used and what results wereachieved, but never acknowledges the reports – andprobably never reads them in their entirety. The costs ofsuch behaviour… are real, though rarely tabulated. Andbecause of the enormous power imbalance between thosewith money and those who need to raise it, they canremain invisible and persist for years on end”.

These are brave words, stronger than anything I haveheard in the UK context, and perhaps reflect the greaterconfidence of the US philanthropy advisory sector thatthere is a demand for their services which is willing tohear some hard home truths.

The larger part of the book takes readers on a journey toaddress a series of questions, covered in individualchapters, which will help them to ‘give smart’: ‘What aremy values and beliefs?’, ‘What is ‘success’ and how can it

be achieved?’, ‘What am I accountable for?’, ‘What will ittake to get the job done?’, ‘How do I work with grantees?’and ‘Am I getting better?’. Using real-life case studies,bullet-point lists and the type of jazzy charts popularisedby management consultants, each chapter helps the donorto develop answers to the questions they will face on theirphilanthropic journeys.

Disappointingly, the authors omit a conclusion and go outwith a whimper in a chapter called ‘Monday morningcheck list,’ which simply consists of a brief inventory ofthe book’s key points. However, the authors’ pedigrees andthe intrinsic quality of the information contained in thisbook, make a second edition a sure bet. Perhaps timemight be found to write some closing words that reviewthe big themes discussed in earlier chapters and tietogether the multiplicity of ideas and pragmatic advice, togive this useful book the final bang that it deserves.

philanthropy uk : inspiring givingPhilanthropy UK Quarterly : Issue 45, Autumn 2011 influential reading : page 36

In each newsletter, Philanthropy UKinvites an influential person from thephilanthropy sector to tell us what bookshave most inspired and shaped theirapproach to philanthropy.

Our ‘influential reader’ in this edition isJohn Kingston OBE, chair of both theAssociation of Charitable Foundations(ACF) and the Nationwide Foundation.He is one of the UK’s foremost experts onsocial investment, having founded andserved for a decade as director of theCharities Aid Foundation’s socialinvestment fund, CAF Venturesome.

Influential reading: John Kingston OBE

John says:

“It is difficult to pick out three books that have influencedmy philanthropic journey because I must have read andskimmed hundreds of books and articles over the years.So, in the spirit of Desert Island Discs, I shall choosethree to illustrate key personal drivers – which arguably I better understand now in retrospect than at the time.

My first choice comes from G K Chesterton, author of theFather Brown stories, one of which The Queer Feetused the phrase “a twitch upon the thread” whichimmediately resonated. My thread begins in a Christianhousehold, runs through VSO before university and twoyears in southern Africa thereafter. It twitched as ICFC –an investment bank targeting small and medium-sizedbusinesses – evolved into 3i Group, and pulled as I left in1990 to join Save the Children. The thread wasstrengthened as I combined my commitment to the sectorwith my financial skills and training to join CAF in 2001,to pilot and later launch Venturesome, providing riskcapital and advice to charities.

Secondly, I have endeavoured to become a supportiveleader of teams underpinned by a strong, shared sense ofstrategic direction. The Hersey-Blanchard model ofSituational Leadership (summarised in The DecisionBook: Fifty models for strategic thinking by Mikael

John Kingston

philanthropy uk : inspiring givingPhilanthropy UK Quarterly : Issue 45, Autumn 2011 influential reading : page 37

Krogerus and Roman Tschappeler) emphasises the need toadapt your leadership style to the circumstances, which isinstructive for the raw recruit through coaching andsupport to delegation to the capable team member. AtVenturesome we often talked of the team as a jazz band,where there was individual room for manoeuvre andinnovation but within a known and shared theme, ratherthan a concert orchestra where the notes are set out andleadership is necessarily hierarchical.

And thirdly, instead of a book, I choose an academicjournal: the Journal of Development Economics. Oneparticular article, that I read as I was leaving Save theChildren and underpinned the Venturesome model, arguedthat changing society occurs at a number of differentlevels. For example, we can save individual childrendrowning in a river (‘service delivery’), but should explorewhy children are in the river in the first place (‘researchand theory of change’). But there is a third level of 'policyand campaigning' work that aims to create culturalchange in society such that no-one thinks of throwingchildren into rivers.

At Venturesome, we aimed to work at the three levels inparallel: to help individual charities, to test and build arisk capital model, and to help build a social investmentmarket which allowed charities access to capital. So I amglad that the organisation I founded has financed 250charities, has proven the risk model, and has used all itslearning to campaign for the concept and emergingpractice of the social investment market in the UK, amarket now endorsed by Government and to bechampioned by Big Society Capital alongside Venturesomeand others.

For a final extra selection I’d pick something quitedifferent – I choose Dogger by Shirley Hughes, a muchloved story read to our children a long way back and nowto our grandson! It’s people that matter, isn't it?”

“But there is a third level of ‘policy andcampaigning’ work that aims to createcultural change in society such that no-onethinks of throwing children into rivers.”


noticesby Dr Beth Breeze, publications editor

Funding the Ladder: The PassmoreEdwards legacy

Dean Evans

John Passmore Edwards was a nineteenth centurypublisher, born in Cornwall, who used his fortune toestablish hospitals, convalescent homes, institutes, artgalleries and museums, as well as libraries in London andCornwall. The author (a local government official whowas involved in the restoration of an early bequest, theBlackwater Institute) notes that the size of hisphilanthropy pales in comparison to better known names:“whereas Carnegie gave millions, Edwards gavethousands” – but that his importance lies in hisphilanthropic philosophy, believing that by ‘funding theladder’ the poor might be encouraged to ‘climb’. As withmany philanthropists, Edwards was also involved in greatissues of his day - such as campaigns against slavery -and was a notable opponent of the Boer War. He was asupporter of the Chartist and Temperance movements, alifelong advocate of parliamentary reform, and was brieflya member of parliament for Salisbury. According to theauthor, Passmore Edwards’ legacy lies in the largenumber of buildings, many bearing his name, thatsupport his passionate beliefs, as well as his convictionthat philanthropy can help people to escape poverty.

Giving in Evidence: Fundraising fromphilanthropy in European universities

Beth Breeze, Iain Wilkinson, Theo Schuyt &Barbara Gouwenberg

This report (in which I declare an interest as co-author)presents the results of the first large-scale study ofphilanthropic funding in European universities, both forgeneral purposes, and specifically in support of research.It covers individual donors, charitable trusts andfoundations and private corporations, analysing the widerange of contextual and institutional factors affectingsuccess and failure in fundraising from philanthropicsources. It also explores the distribution of efforts andoutcomes of fundraising activities, ways in whichphilanthropic contributions are used to support research,and the positive and negative impacts of receiving thissource of funding. The wealth of data gathered throughthis study provides a much-needed basis for any futureenquiries in the field of fundraising from philanthropy forresearch in European universities.

European Commission: Brussels, June 2011. 178pp.Softcover. ISBN 978-92-79-18784-1. Available online athttp://ec.europa.eu/research/era/docs/en/fundraising-from-philanthropy.pdf#view=fit&pagemode=none

Francis Boutle Publishers, 2011. 268pp. Softcover.ISBN 978-1-903427-66-8. £20.00www.francisboutle.co.uk

Philanthropic Lives: The uniqueexperiences of eight UKphilanthropists

J.P. Morgan Private Bank report

This report is the outcome of a commission by J.P.Morgan Private Bank to research charitable giving amongwealthy individuals. It explores the experiences of eightphilanthropists in the UK, and presents the findings of asurvey of 200 of J.P. Morgan’s UK ultra-high-net-worthclients. The authors claim that only 7% are satisfied withthe amount they give away, but that the vast majoritywant to give more, and many would do so if they receivedmore information about how their donations are spent. Allthe donors interviewed emphasise the huge rewards thatcome from giving and the satisfaction it brings. Toovercome some of the challenges in giving money awayeffectively, many had sought professional advice, whichthey found made their giving both easier and moreenjoyable. The report is intended to present inspiringstories that demonstrate how rewarding charitable givingcan be, with the aim of encouraging more people to ‘diptheir toe’ in and try philanthropy.

London: New Philanthropy Capital in association withJ.P. Morgan, May 2011. 30pp. Free to download athttp://www.philanthropycapital.org/publications/improving_the_sector/improving_philanthropy/philanthropic_lives.aspx


The value of charity analysis: How reviewing your organisation canhelp you achieve more

Esther Paterson and Iona Joy

Whilst the benefits of analysis have been well known inthe private and public sectors for years, charities have notalways been subject to the same scrutiny. NPC has beenanalysing charities for nearly a decade and believes thatit is key to charities becoming better at what they do,because it helps charities to identify strengths andweaknesses, find out what works and what does not, andwork out how to improve. In this report, NPC turns thetables by inviting feedback on their own performancefrom 16 charities who have been analysed by NPC in thepast. The aim of this exercise is to clarify why charityanalysis is useful by asking questions such as: what docharities think of NPC’s analysis? How have they benefited?And how could the analysis improve? Three main benefitsof analysis are identified in the report: Firstly, byidentifying strengths and areas for improvement, analysiscan both challenge and encourage charities in their work,and be used by the management and trustees as a tool forinternal reflection and assessment. Secondly, the processof internal reflection and assessment can prompt charitiesto make changes and improve their work. And thirdly,independent analysis can help charities to attractfunding, because it can increase the confidence of fundersand potential partners in the charity.

London: New Philanthropy Capital, July 2011. 14pp.Free to download athttp://www.philanthropycapital.org/download/default.aspx?id=1158

Social impact investing news

A brief round-up of developments from the social investment world

philanthropy uk : inspiring givingPhilanthropy UK Quarterly : Issue 45, Autumn 2011 social impact investment : page 40

Big Society Bank launchedThe Big Society Bank has been launched and officiallynamed Big Society Capital. The bank is set to receive£600m in equity capital in the coming months. The fundswill go to socially-orientated financial organisations whowill allocate it to charities, social enterprises andvoluntary groups. Visit:

www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Cabinet Office announces new fund toassist charities and social enterprises inaccessing capitalThe £10m Investment and Contract Readiness Fund aimsto help charities and social enterprises develop the skillsand infrastructure to attract more capital investment andpublic service contracts. Visit:


‘Investor Perspectives on SocialEnterprise Financing’ report publishedThe report, jointly commissioned by the City of LondonCorporation, City Bridge Trust and the Big Lottery Fund,and authored by ClearlySo, provides an insight into theattitudes of institutional investors towards socialinvestment. Visit:

www.cityoflondon.gov.uk

Office for Civil Society launches socialimpact bonds trialMinisters are calling on investors to help raise up to £40in social impact bonds which will be spent on projectsassisting deprived families tackle multiple problems suchas addiction, crime and poor education. Investors will bepaid a dividend by the taxpayer for any successful project.


Social Enterprise Coalition calls formainstream investment alongside BigSociety Capital

The Coalition has urged the government to create a boldpackage of measures to encourage social investment bybusinesses and other investors. Visit:

www.socialenterprise.org.uk

Bates, Wells and Braithwaite and NESTAoutline framework for the regulation ofcommunity and social finance

‘Investing in Civil Society’ sets out how a proportionatesocial finance legal and regulatory regime could beestablished in order to achieve the growth of the socialinvestment market. Visit:

www.nesta.org.uk

The Co-operative and CAREInternational partner to launch‘lendwithcare’ microfinance schemeThe scheme, which hopes to raise £1.5m, encourages peoplein the UK to lend to small scale entrepreneurs runningtheir own enterprise in developing countries. Visit:

www.lendwithcare.org

Triodos lends £1.3m to Glasgow HousingAssociation

The Yorkhill Housing Association will use the funding topurchase new-build residential flats and offices. TheYorkhill project marks Triodos’ first housing associationloan in Scotland. Visit:

www.triodos.co.uk

EU publishes consultation on thepromotion of social investment funds

The consultation aims to gather feedback on variousoptions for increasing investment to social businessesthrough investment funds. Visit:

http://ec.europa.eu

Lisa Wootton, project manager, UKSIF

www.uksif.org

By Lisa Wootton, project manager, UKSIF

If you require any further information on these stories or have a socialinvestment news item, please contact Lisa Wootton, [email protected]

philanthropy uk : inspiring givingPhilanthropy UK Quarterly : Issue 45, Autumn 2011 social impact investment : page 41

NCVO launches Social InvestmentWorking GroupThe Group will review tax incentives to stimulate thesocial investment market ahead of the March 2012 budgetwith a focus on foundations and high net worthindividuals. Visit:

www.ncvo-vol.org.uk

Responsible Research publishes paperon impact investing in emergingmarkets‘Impact Investing in Emerging Markets’ highlights some ofthe key issues and current opportunities and includescase studies of successful projects. Visit:

www.responsibleresearch.com

Social Investment Organisation reportestimates Canadian impact investingmarket at $4.45mSIO, the Canadian Association for Socially ResponsibleInvestment, has compiled a report on the size and scale ofimpact investment in Canada. Visit:

www.socialinvestment.ca

Forthcoming Impact Investing Events:

National Ethical Investment Week: 16-22 October

The Week brings together individuals, community andfinancial organisations and charities through events andother activities to let people know that they have green andethical options that may help them ‘make money and makea difference’. Visit:

www.neiw.org

Good Deals 2011 UK Social InvestmentConference: 24 November

The Conference connects innovative investors andinspirational social entrepreneurs. Visit:

www.good-dealsuk.com

philanthropy uk : inspiring givingPhilanthropy UK Quarterly : Issue 45, Autumn 2011 : page 42

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