The Philanthropy Ecosystem: The Connectors.

When we think of a philanthropist, we often imagine a ‘lone saviour’. Someone who works alone to determine how best to do good and acts alone to achieve their desired impact.

Of course this is far from the reality.

As we have already seen in this series, there is an ecosystem of support around donors (philanthropy advisors, thinkers, wealth managers) who can help them with their choices.

Philanthropists also do good through the actions of others – those partner organisations and community leaders they choose to support. Increasingly, there is a rise in collaboration, linked to the fact that the world’s problems are too big to be tackled without collective effort.

Part of the philanthropy ecosystem is made up of the connectors – the networks, platforms and collaborations that ensure philanthropy is less lonely.

They connect philanthropists to each other as well as wider learning, practice and ideas.

The Philanthropy Workshop (TPW) is part of this infrastructure supporting a global community of 400 high net worth philanthropists.

(There are others such as The Mesa and Beacon’s new Beacons Connect network which you can read about here.)

TPW was established to educate individual wealth holders and their families; providing frameworks, approaches, toolkits, principles and practices to help them have a greater impact.

Now, alongside the learning programmes, TPW is a community which provides a safe space for discussion and connection, convening peers to share best practice, to learn from and influence one another.

In this interview, Marie-Louise Gourlay, the Managing Director of Europe for TPW, tells us more about their work and how a community of peers benefits philanthropists.

Please tell us more about the work you do.

Marie-Louise: I work closely with a community of 100 philanthropists in the UK and Europe. I bring new philanthropists into the TPW community which involves understanding what they hope to do and identifying the support they need from TPW’s education and our community of peer philanthropists.

We have a core learning programme and that provides a shared framework and language, which in turn creates the basis for a shared sense of community.

TPW is officially cause-agnostic and so we focus on the process, the ‘how to’ of philanthropy. We give people access, knowledge, resources and lots of connections. We hold the space for peers to influence their fellow peers.

Our work is underpinned by our values: we are open and collaborative, promote transparency and action-oriented mindsets and we have a strong focus on equity and justice.

We really want people to move from education to action and collaboration.

How does this benefit philanthropists?

Marie-Louise: There are so many things members get from being part of TPW: education, connections, community. There is huge value in the peer to peer influencing – the ability to sit down with peers who have trodden this path before them. There’s a lot more complexity than people first realise.

New philanthropists often don’t know how to navigate the sector, are concerned they are not having enough impact and consequently some lack the confidence to move forward.

Many report feeling a huge responsibility to achieve immediate impact and that can sometimes get in the way of giving:  we sometimes hear people say: “We’ve set up a Foundation but we haven’t made a grant yet”.

We provide a safe space where they can ask anything: What are the questions I should be asking? How do I do due diligence? How do I do a field scan? How should I consider risk?  They build their knowledge, their tools, their approaches and confidence. We talk a lot about root causes, so they really understand how best to effect change at a wider systemic level.

We’ve had members who have gone on to set up their own organisations, or a co-funding arrangement or collaboration.

We can’t attribute this solely to TPW but we believe our role in holding a trusted space plays a vital part in accelerating their philanthropy and its outcomes, and there is no other community or convening space for philanthropists like it.

Another value of the community is that it is two-way. You’re coming not only to learn but also to give back, through mentorship, thought leadership, or sharing learning, failures and best practice. We encourage members to think beyond their own giving to their influence on the wider sector and how they can push things forward.

And the benefit of connecting with peers goes far beyond discussing philanthropy. It could be talking about family dynamics or prenuptial agreements.

Our community is a safe space for people to come together who are facing a lot of the same challenges such as the responsibility of stewarding wealth, understanding where their wealth came from and what that means today.

What differences do you see when supporting younger wealth holders?

Marie-Louise: In the past people felt that it was their wealth to decide what to do with and when and how to hand down.

Increasingly we’re hearing that the next generation see themselves as stewarding money that is not theirs. Younger philanthropists are more interested in changing the system and they apply different lenses – justice, climate, racial equity – rather than focus on a single issue.

We’ve also seen a shift to leading with impact.

This could mean extending their philanthropy to include activism, giving that is non-financial e.g. time, and taking a total portfolio approach. This changes the intention from “How do I do the best philanthropy? to “How do I get the greatest impact?”

A lot has changed in my eight years with TPW.

Members are now more open to the value of influencing one another and see that as part of their responsibility in driving more rapid change. They are looking to the community to share opportunities, to ask for ideas of what to fund, and to make connections.

They aren’t afraid to challenge one another and certainly hold one another to account. The culture of money as a taboo topic remains something of a limitation: our community builds trust and breaks down the entirely private nature of discussing finance.

Increasingly members are thinking about what their role – and the role of philanthropy – is in society, beyond what their own strategic interventions might be, and how to find the levers for change.

Marie-Louise Gourlay is Managing Director of Europe at The Philanthropy Workshop.

Where next?