FAQ's

Philanthropy is the investment of private capital for public benefit; strategic philanthropy is a donor's personal thought-through plan to make the biggest possible difference to the issues that he or she cares about. It is an approach to philanthropy that emphasises upstream problem solving, leverage, system change and evaluating impact.

Both play a vital role in our society, but are very different. Charity is reactive to immediate need, such as aid in the event of famine; the donor's giving is essentially transactional, in that he or she writes a cheque to the beneficiaries and has no further involvement. Strategic philanthropy is proactive and outcome-led; it influences or creates systems that deliver broad change beyond a limited number of beneficiaries.

If you're throwing money at complex issues like say, poverty or climate change, then you won't get very far. Strategic philanthropy aims to understand social problems in their context, identifying opportunities and working collaboratively with government and the private sector. What's more, we believe that accountability - in the form of rigorous evaluation of your grant-making - is essential if you truly wish to make a positive impact.

Philanthropists, no matter how wealthy they are, will not be able to rival the budgets of governments; they therefore have to use their money in such a way that it has an impact far beyond the size of the original grant that they make. For example, a donor with whom we worked gave a grant of a few thousand pounds to a talented advocate, with the result that his government increased its commitment by more than tenfold to funding of overseas causes.

Philanthropy varies from culture to culture; however, strategic philanthropists have some common traits: they are nimble, non-bureaucratic, agile, innovative, imaginative, risk-taking.