Breathing new life.
Posted by Adrian on 21 Dec 2006 at 5:24 pm | Tagged as: Charities, Philanthropy
Ken Livingstone, and many others, are taking issue with the latest round of city bonuses. On one level I agree with them that many of the figures mentioned verge on the incomprehensible to the vast majority of the population. However, while a top hedge fund manager can earn £20m or more in just one good year, the financial sector is also increasingly active in giving money back to society.
Hedge funds and financial houses setting up charitable entities like TCI, ARK and ECT are bringing a new vitality to the Third Sector. These new foundations are each benefiting from the financial success of their benefactors who, in turn, demand the best possible ‘returns’ on their charitable investments. This results lead approach is exactly what the Third Sector needs to adopt to build new and long-lasting relationships with an increasingly sceptical public.
So, not only are these excessively rewarded individuals boosting charitable donations but, through their venture philanthropy approach, they may also be helping to steer charities in the right direction. Not all bad then?
[…] The Institute of fundraising has said that the Government’s £1.2m Innovation Exchange scheme which aims to “put people with ideas in touch with people who might be able to invest in them, and with those with experience of turning them into a reality” is looking in the wrong place for answers. They have argued that “state-sponsored innovation is a contradiction in terms” and I wholeheartedly agree. In the same way that I have stated my belief that venture philanthropy has the power to get the most benefit from the funds available to the charity sector, so too does the commercial sector have a valuable contribution to make. […]