The Resource Alliance Philanthropy blog http://resource-alliance.posterous.com Most recent posts at The Resource Alliance Philanthropy blog posterous.com Tue, 26 Jun 2012 04:30:00 -0700 Bridging philanthropy & development: June Forum Agenda http://resource-alliance.posterous.com/june-forum-agenda http://resource-alliance.posterous.com/june-forum-agenda

Following last week’s Rio + 20 conference on sustainable development, the post-2015 agenda is very much at the centre of the international stage. So our meeting in Bellagio comes at a great time. Bringing together a small group of philanthropists and development actors from across Asia and Africa, we will be exploring how these two groups can work together to achieve sustainable change.

The agenda we’ve put together covers the broader issues affecting sustainable development and philanthropy as well as some more specific questions relating to collaboration, innovation and risk.

We’ll begin by introducing some of the key questions which will provide context to the discussions throughout the rest of the forum and inviting the participants to share their own experiences on the types of issues they focus on, how we might place more emphasis on investing in organisations rather than individual projects in the future and what philanthropy looks like in an interdependent world, where many development issues are borderless.

We’ll then move on to look at examples where collaboration between philanthropists and development entities has worked well and reflect on why these examples succeeded. We’ll also look at what we can learn from examples that didn’t work so well. By the end of these discussions we aim to develop a list of factors that influence the success of collaborations.

During the first afternoon, we also have a debate planned to address the question of who is driving the development agenda. We aim to provoke a lively discussion on who is setting the agenda, the relevance of such an agenda for philanthropists and whether we need a global case for support for development. Social innovation systems will also be examined, considering what they might look like and how such systems could be scaled.

The first day will end with a short presentation on the critical issues in risk and philanthropy. It will highlightsome of the key findings from the paper on risk and philanthropy we commissioned following the Bellagio Summit, which is published today.

The second day will take an in depth look at the critical issues in risk and philanthropy, picking up on some of the issues emerging from the report. We’ll be encouraging the group to come up with recommendations on reducing operational and impact risks. By the end of the forum, we hope to have a more concrete idea about what it would take to support people so that they can learn from the successes and failures of others and scale up the fundamental idea of our forum to give others the same experience.

We’ll keep you up to date as the discussions evolve and will really welcome your own perspectives and questions on these issues in the comments below and via Twitter and Facebook.

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Wed, 20 Jun 2012 03:27:00 -0700 Observations on Bridging Philanthropy and Development in Asia http://resource-alliance.posterous.com/observations-on-bridging-philanthropy-and-dev http://resource-alliance.posterous.com/observations-on-bridging-philanthropy-and-dev

Next up in our series of guest posts we hear from Usha Menon, Executive Chairman of Usha Menon Management Consultancy, about the changes she believes could bridge philanthropy and development to create a thriving world for us and future generations: 

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This illustration is at the heart of my reflections for this blog, as I prepare for the forum to be held next week at the Bellagio Centre on Bridging Philanthropy and Development in Asia and Africa. 

For Asian development practitioner and philanthropists living in very interesting times, some even labelling it the Asian century, I believe we have a responsibility to be the change we want to see in this world.  Here are some of the changes that I believe could bridge philanthropy and development:

Participation: One that genuinely empowers the community, rather than as a tool for establishing power relationships between the donor and the charity or development agency. Despite the attempts and experimentation with bringing about collaboration between donors and implementing agencies, my observation in that in most cases it’s merely an attempt to integrate indigenous views into pre-determined positions of the donor or even the development intermediary, without much say from the impacted community.

Asian philanthropists and development practitioners have a great opportunity to put authentic empowerment into practise. The profile of an Asian philanthropist is very different from that of their western counterparts and leadership within funding agencies.

Bain & Company in their India Philanthropy Report 2012 reports that of the 400 high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs*) and emerging HNWIs in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Pune surveyed:

•    More than 70% of the donors have less than three years of philanthropic experience. Majority were 40 years old or younger
•    Among families who participate in philanthropy, 76% have younger relatives who have assumed an active role in choosing charities, while 69% say young members shape or spearhead the family’s charitable mission
•    Private foundations are beginning to play a major role in Philanthropy

Process Innovation: Over the past few decades the dependence on ‘foreign aid’ has developed a whole generation of Asian development practitioners who are conditioned by the linear thinking and reporting requirements of their western funders. Despite these processes, the grant makers are often unable to receive the quality and quantity of written information that they seek of their grantees. At the same time, the application and reporting requirements have made these funding impractical for many grassroots organizations or the time and effort expended to get a grant is at times not proportionate to the size of the grant. Donor reporting requirements driven by matrixes and frameworks, do not consider stories from the ground as sophisticated theory, thus losing out on the possibility of hearing the real voices.

Asian philanthropists and development practitioners have a tremendous opportunity to close this gap by looking innovatively at the processes needed for engagement, tracking and celebrating the impact with the community.  Philanthropists have an opportunity to foster open, empowering, and flexible relationships with their grantees that could leverage on technological advancements in communications while at the same time build on our rich tradition of oral storytelling.

Perception:

The profile and motivations of the Asian philanthropists differ in many ways from the donors that development practitioners are used to dealing with, in the past. UBS-INSEAD Study of Family Philanthropy in Asia that covered over 200 surveys and over a hundred personal interviews with wealthy Asian families from 10 Asia Pacific countries, found the following motivations of Asian philanthropists: 

•    42% of respondents said their major reason to engage philanthropy is to make sure they ensure the continuity of their family values and to create a lasting legacy for future generations.
•    They tend to donate to their own countries, with roughly 70% of donations on average in 2010 given to national causes. However the younger philanthropists seemed more open to national and international causes.
•    36% of donations went into education, while poverty alleviation accounted for 10% and healthcare for 9%. However younger philanthropists seemed more open to sectors such as the arts, civil rights and the environment
•    Family business remains an important source of funds with 22% of the families studied reporting company profits as providing funding for their philanthropy and prefer maintaining operational control, rather than working collaboratively or as grant-making entities
•    36% of survey respondents ranked Social Entrepreneurship as the most important trend that will affect philanthropy in Asia, with a growing interest among family philanthropies in the sustainable and transformative potential of social ventures with earned income strategies.

Hence it is the mutual responsibility of both the philanthropists and the development practitioners to forge collaborations that will take us all to our common goal – a thriving world for us and our future generations.

Usha Menon is Executive Chairman of Usha Menon Management Consultancy, an international training and consultancy service for the non-profit sector across Asia, specialising in strategic management, inspirational leadership development and mission driven fundraising. Usha is a keen observer and an active global participant in the non-profit sector for the past 25 years.

Join the #futurephilanthropy debate online on Twitter or Facebook, or share your comments below. 

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