There is a need and opportunity for strategic philanthropy to drive large scale social change. Solving
intractable problems requires philanthropy, government and business sectors working effectively
together. But philanthropy’s impact is held back by a lack of data, research, and analysis and, at
times, leadership. This webinar launches new research on the future of philanthropy and hears from
philanthropists around the world on how they are responding to the challenges of our times.
Panelits included:
- Badr Jafar, philanthropist in the United Arab Emirates
- Rohini Nilekani, Nilekani Philanthropies in India
- Laurence Lien, Lien Foundation in Singapore
- Precious Moloi-Motsepe, Motsepe Foundation in South Africa
- Moderator: Charles Keidan, Alliance Executive Editor, and introduction to panel:
TRANSCRIPT:
0:00:05.6 Charles Keidan: Well welcome. Hello and welcome. Greetings from Alliance and welcome to the place to be for what’s happening in philanthropy everywhere. Back in 2018, the Emirati philanthropist Badr Jafar appealed to philanthropists to step up their act in response to rising social needs. In his forward to research on the future of philanthropy, Badr issued a call to action saying we simply must do better than the status quo. And the suffering caused by the COVID pandemic makes such agitation on his part seem prescient, the drumbeats of calls for our field to change and improve are growing louder. I’m Charles Keidan, the Executive Editor, Alliance and the moderator of today’s discussion.
0:00:43.6 Charles Keidan: Today we’re marking the launch of new updated research on the future of global philanthropy. We’ll be asking all the research asks, questions around can philanthropy collaborate more effectively with both government and business to solve hard problems? Do we need better data and analysis and also leadership? And ultimately, can a more strategic approach to philanthropy drive large scale social change? And to explore these questions, I’m delighted to welcome philanthropists, Rohini Nilekani, Laurence Lien, Precious Moloi-Motsepe and Badr Jafar here today. And before we hear from them, which we’ll be doing in a few moments, we’ll start with a brief overview of the new research to center our discussion. We’ll then have a conversation with our panel before fielding questions from all of you joining around the world. And it’s great that so many hundreds of you have registered for today’s discussion. So please introduce yourself in the chat. I know you’re not shy, it’s on the right hand side of your screen. Get your questions ready and upvote others. You can take the conversation onto X, formerly known as Twitter, @Alliancemagazine. Sorry, @AllianceMag and using the hashtag #futureofglobalphilanthropy.
0:01:49.5 Charles Keidan: Everyone attending today is entitled to a 30% discount on any Alliance subscription, which gives you exclusive subscriber content and four issues of our flagship magazine each year. There’s a link to our subscription page in the chat, and you can use the code FUTURE30 for the discount. So now over to the research, I have my good colleague, Zibran, producing today’s webinar and he’s gonna pull up some just very brief slides just to provide an overview. But, the series on the future of global philanthropy includes two research reports as mentioned there, commissioned by Badr Jafar. The first was written in 2018 by the Consultancy Global Agenda, and was based on the insights of expert workshops around the world. The second, published in 2023, published today, was written by Alliance Magazine’s features editor Andrew Milner in conjunction with regional experts Ese Emerhi, Heba Abou Shnief and Mihika Chanchani. And it was based on both desk and field research with a focus on three regions, Africa, Southeast Asia and Middle East.
0:02:53.5 Charles Keidan: And I’m delighted we’ve got philanthropists from those regions to provide perspectives on the research. Let’s go to the next slide. So the motivation for the research is really as I mentioned, that I think Badr will talk a bit more about this, but the central question is how can we realize the full potential of a more strategically directed philanthropy to drive large scale social change? We have the next slide, and just to focus back on what seems like an eternity ago, in the pre COVID era of 2018, the trends identified then were, as follows, globalization driving major increases in philanthropy in fast growing economies in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, and perhaps Latin America as well. And with it, economic and philanthropic power moving south and east, an eye watering forecast of, a mega transfer of wealth across generations, estimated at $29 trillion over the next 30 years. And the potential to harness faith-based giving, to contribute more strategically to the sustainable development goals, and an increased availability and appetite for transparent data on philanthropy to inform decision making.
0:04:11.1 Charles Keidan: So those were all issues identified by the earlier piece of research. And we’re just gonna move to the next slide. And with it some proposed actions that follow on from that, investments in research infrastructure to improve analysis of problems and intervention points. So we’ll be looking and asking guests about, what investments have been made and to what end since 2018? More investments in the wider philanthropy ecosystem were proposed, including publications like Alliance that support the philanthropy communications infrastructure, and more collaboration within philanthropy and between philanthropy and government and between philanthropy and business. And underlying all that, a question about leadership in philanthropy, are today’s philanthropists showing the leadership the times demand? Certainly we have a cross section of them here today.
0:05:01.3 Charles Keidan: The question is how representative are they of the wider growing ecosystem of philanthropists? So the report today that we’re just about to discuss will be looking at progress on the trends, any new emerging trends, how they’re playing out in specific regions, and further action. And next slide please. So some key findings, and some of these will be more familiar than others, and I just want to actually highlight the second one that’s on your screen. That philanthropy infrastructure remain stronger in countries where philanthropy is more developed. And the inverse of that is that infrastructure is weaker in those countries where philanthropy is less developed. So, an important agenda for the development of philanthropy is the development of philanthropy infrastructure. One of the topics we’re talking about today. Everyone here will be familiar with technology reshaping philanthropy. We were just noting how conversations like this just wouldn’t be happening. We didn’t have the technology in place to have people gathered from around the world for discussions. And of course that change is not exclusive to philanthropy by any means, but it is reshaping our field. And COVID, of course, is a presence, sort as a specter, if you like, that’s emerged since the 2018 research.
0:06:16.2 Charles Keidan: We’ll just move on to a few more findings or a few more highlights. And of course, this is in no way comprehensive, just pulling out a few points. The SDGs, I want to just draw attention to them, they are proving an orienting point for philanthropy, but not an organizing principle. And here, we’ve just published our new issue of Alliance, which has a special feature on progress on the SDGs, looking at the optimism with which they were announced in 2015 and asking what’s happened and where the potential really lies. Collaboration is a big theme we’ll be talking about. It’s happening more, changing roles for business with blended value that I think Precious will be talking about in a moment. And of course, how a new generation of wealth holders are focusing both on different causes and with different approaches.
0:07:05.8 Charles Keidan: Can I just have the next slide and just a few more looking at countries before we turn to our panelists who are here. So one informant of the research referred to growing pains for philanthropy in Africa, still affected and shaped by foreign funding, and debates about how international development funding should change and needs to change, debates around decolonization, but also a need to quantify the size and impact of domestic philanthropy in Africa, and provide the right infrastructure to support it. And with that, some questions are raised by informants about how money, domestic philanthropic money is being made and declared, and questions around the support for human rights and social justice causes, which can be a challenge for philanthropists who might be part of the very elites, the business, economic and political elites, but also trying to be a tugboat maybe in some cases to those elites as well. So, actions that were identified were funding more research, building a cadre of expert philanthropy advisors on the continent, investing in community led development and building more trust and transparency in the positive potential of elite philanthropy on the continent.
0:08:14.5 Charles Keidan: So, just turning briefly to the Southeast Asia insights from the reports, can we go to the next slide, please? And here I’m by no means trying to summarize what’s in the report, but I did want to single out Singapore, where a very interesting finding was a very substantial growth in the number of family offices since 2017. I think 400% growth, and family offices are significant ’cause they’re a hub for managing family wealth, and therefore create the conditions for philanthropy. So a question about Singapore emerging, having emerging status at the epicenter of Southeast Asian philanthropy. And with it, there are some action points for funders around supporting civil society and social entrepreneurs, getting younger donors engaged, bringing their expertise as well as their money to support local NGOs and local solutions to break down this huge challenge of climate change, providing local solutions to ecological challenges.
0:09:11.6 Charles Keidan: If we go to the next slide, and here there’s just a little bit more that I wanted to draw out on the Middle East. So a few big words here around maybe a shift to the non-profitisation and philanthropification of the public sphere in the Middle East. And by that, I think the research is suggesting that with an opening of certain governments in the the Middle East, there’s a potential to expand the role that the nonprofit sector plays with both delivering public services and contributing to the public good. So in Saudi Arabia, for example, as part of its 2030 vision, a goal for 5% of the contribution to GDP to come from the nonprofit sector, and with it accelerating improvements or developments in the regulatory environment. And in the Middle East, while much giving remains ‘charitable’, there’s also some really impressive strategic innovations. One example cited is work on education across the Gulf region led by the Al Ghurair Foundation.
0:10:12.6 Charles Keidan: There’s also a very interesting phenomena, and we covered it actually in an issue on royal philanthropy a few years ago of a fusion of state and royal philanthropy. These semi-governmental philanthropic foundations that have an arm in government, but also have an independent status. But also a note that much of the giving in the region is still steering clear of human rights causes. And that might be an issue that needs further unpacking either in today’s discussion and beyond. But if you can just move to the final slide on the research, some actions that were identified were around funding capacity for nonprofits and civil society, bridging local communities with the wider and somewhat grander visions of the SDGs, and also building sector infrastructure to support the professionalization of the sector. If donors are gonna give money to the sector, they need to know that it’s professional and strategically oriented.
0:11:06.2 Charles Keidan: So funding a local ecosystem, not just the global firms and consultancies, in order to achieve it and advocate for a more enabling policy framework. And there’s some comments in quite a timely way on environment given that’s the role that we’ll talk about in relation to the upcoming COP in the UAE. So those are just a kind of whistle stop tour of some of the key findings. On the next slide, you’ll see a link just to our website which we can go to, where you will see this full report that’s launching today. But with that, I’m really delighted to bring in first, Badr Jafar. As I have said, Badr is a philanthropist we’ve now collaborated with at Alliance over many years. He’s based in the United Arab Emirates. He’s the CEO of Crescent Enterprises, and recently appointed special representative for business and philanthropy for the UAE COP28 presidency. But before we talk about that, really, I just want to zero in on the research. Welcome Badr. In your foreword to this latest research, you say that none of the regions in the research have yet fully realized the potential for strategic philanthropy, but there is evidence that this might be beginning to change. So can we start by just asking you optimistic that some of the work that you and others are doing is beginning to bear fruit, that there is a change that’s underway. Over to you.
0:12:26.1 Badr Jafar: Yeah. Thank you so much, Charles. So the original report commissioned, as you said in 2018, drew largely on the results of a series of expert workshops held around the world. And I think it yielded valuable insights into the state of philanthropy worldwide and the key trends that were shaping it five years on this updated report, again, as you said, which I was of course delighted to collaborate with Alliance on, set out to achieve I think three main objectives. First to sense check whether the trends identified back then were indeed playing out, second to identify any new emerging trends, and third, and perhaps most importantly, to provide practical recommendations for philanthropists on how to support and build on these trends. In this updated report, and as was just shared, the focus is on three distinct regions; Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
0:13:30.7 Badr Jafar: There are major shifts taking place in philanthropy across global growth markets. As many will know, over $5 trillion of wealth in the top 30 growing economies, all in growth markets will be passed to the next generation within the next decade. And this will lead to a corresponding major increase in philanthropic activity within these societies. Now, why am I optimistic to your question that these shifts are good news for the sector? Well, this next gen is reshaping the practise of giving by demanding a more hands on approach and embracing tech innovations to scale impact, emerging digital tools and platforms are making giving much more accessible. And things like big data and AI are enabling the gathering, processing and understanding of philanthropic data much more effectively than ever before. Insights from this report showed that technology has the potential to transform technology, I think in three key ways.
0:14:39.8 Badr Jafar: Firstly through the growth of online giving. Second through its ability to process large amounts of data. And thirdly, by making the operation of philanthropy more transparent. I am particularly excited about this last point as I strongly believe that creating a culture of transparency and strong governance within the philanthropic sector is paramount for its successful evolution. Transparency builds trust as we know, which is fundamental to any successful transaction. Good governance ensures that resources are used effectively and that organisations are held accountable for the impact that they create. And it’s for these very reasons that we launched the governance and philanthropy programme at the Pearl Initiative, which is now in its 13th year of nonprofit programmatic work around corporate governance.
0:15:36.5 Badr Jafar: Now, despite these positive developments, as we also know, there is still tremendous untapped potential. The convergence of increasing wealth creation in emerging economies, the enthusiasm of youth, the power of technology, and the growing awareness of the catalytic effects of strategic philanthropy more generally all underpin this unprecedented opportunity. And we must harness this potential to help address the pressing global challenges that we face across our social and environmental landscapes. Now, as was outlined, this report highlights that across these regions and globally two critical needs have emerged. The need for sufficient and accurate data research and analysis, and the need for greater collaboration between philanthropists in general as well as across sectors. And I hope that reports of this nature will help to create the impetus for these needs to be met.
0:16:35.5 Charles Keidan: Thank you, Badr. And you mentioned research and data to improve analysis. And one thing you’ve been doing, at least since that 2018 report, you’ve been busy trying to build more capacity for strategic philanthropy, primarily by establishing centres at different universities on strategic philanthropy. I think there’s one in Cambridge, there’s one in the UAE, I think there’s more that you are working on. How significant do you see these initiatives to building not just the knowledge ecosystem, but actually enabling philanthropy to be more strategic?
0:17:07.0 Badr Jafar: The establishment of these strategic philanthropy centres really is rooted in my belief in philanthropic structure or infrastructure as the backbone of strategic philanthropy. This infrastructure encompasses activating and strengthening relevant networks, streamlining conducive regulation and enhancing philanthropic governance, all supported by solid data and evidence. Now, we all know that regional networks for philanthropy are of paramount importance because they serve to create and circulate knowledge, bring the philanthropic ecosystem together, to share experiences and inspire action. And more broadly, they advocate for the crucial role of philanthropy in our societies. Now, as many of you know only too well, fuzzy legal frameworks for charity and philanthropy in many of these markets have impeded the institutionalized development of foundations and the overall work of philanthropies and philanthropists, networks and institutions I think such as these strategic philanthropy centres hopefully can be an important voice in advocating for enabling regulation to help the sector realise its huge potential. So the motivation really to establish these strategic philanthropy centres is really to create strong pillars towards building a global philanthropic infrastructure, enhancing the impact of philanthropic capital within the regions themselves, but also as these large pools of capital are dispersed to the rest of the world.
0:18:49.0 Charles Keidan: That is all very clear. And I think, while many philanthropists fund research, there aren’t so many philanthropists that fund research into the development of philanthropy. So I know there’ll be many people here who will be aware and appreciative of those efforts. But turning to one cause area where the research really does need to be harnessed within the SDG framework, and that is climate. So you’ve, as we mentioned, been recently appointed as the special representative for business and philanthropy for the upcoming COP. So it’s a very significant moment, not just for you, but for the United Arab Emirates hosting this conversation about how to address the climate crisis. Are you confident that this more strategic approach to philanthropy that you’ve been advocating for can actually inform how climate philanthropy itself is practiced and elevate those discussions?
0:19:44.0 Badr Jafar: Well, I always start with the disclaimer that I’m not an expert on philanthropy or on climate change, but I am a good student of both. And of course, as you’ve gathered, I believe strongly that philanthropy can catalyze the change needed to move the global system on all key challenges facing humanity and our habitat, including the climate and nature challenge. Again, I’ve been saying for years that philanthropy is the forgotten child of the capital system. Now we seem to have found that child all grown up. We must engage with it properly. We mustn’t, or we must dispel, I should say, dispel this myth that philanthropic capital is too small to make a difference.
0:20:23.7 Badr Jafar: Private philanthropy is at least a trillion dollars annually, probably a lot more, which is again more than five times ODA or official development assistance from governments. But the real focus should be on the quality of this large pool of capital. Strategic philanthropy has the ability to deploy flexible risk tolerant and patient capital in ways that uniquely leverage business and government capital and create that multiplier effect. And this is especially relevant to climate philanthropy, which can in many cases be, or many ways be the glue that binds business and government and civil society together in concerted action to achieve our net zero and nature positive goals.
0:21:11.2 Badr Jafar: When it comes to the global south, home to 80% of the world’s population, these regions are going to bear the brunt, as we know, of climate change with issues like extreme heat, water scarcity, and poor air quality already creating systemic challenges. And this is despite the fact that the richest 10% of the world, mostly in the global north, have per capita footprints 11 times higher than the poorest 50%. And while current levels of philanthropic funding in these markets towards climate causes stand very low as a percentage of overall climate funding, probably less than 10% of the total, we have a number of major opportunities on the horizon that gives me confidence that this will accelerate very quickly.
0:22:00.3 Badr Jafar: The COP28, since you mentioned it, already recognizes that addressing the climate crisis is an enormous undertaking with projections of $4 trillion per year required to support our net zero and nature positive goals. No single funding source alone has the capacity to meet these needs. However, I think philanthropic capital can play a crucial role in catalyzing both public and private or business finance to unlock the trillions of dollars that are needed towards both adaptation and mitigation outcomes. So COP28 in the UAE will raise the bar in terms of ambition and the creation of a global architecture for all capital actors to act together at speed and at scale. And as I alluded to, the top regions to receive climate mitigation funding last year were US, Canada and Europe, according to Climate Works. Africa and Latin America combined represented less than 10% of total foundation funding. So a key focus for COP28 will be to ensure proper engagement from these regions of the world that stand to gain the most from climate action and to help funnel more funds into these regions and from within these regions.
0:23:22.5 Badr Jafar: And this effort will need to be anchored in frameworks of collaboration and co-creation built around a common sense of purpose and urgency. And just finally, as part of these efforts, we just announced in fact yesterday that we’ll be hosting a first-of-a-kind Business and Philanthropy Climate Forum on the 1st and 2nd of December at COP28 in Dubai. And this forum will gather over 500 global CEOs and philanthropy leaders, placing partnership with action drivers at the core of the forum’s agenda. So if this is relevant to you, please save the date.
0:24:00.0 Charles Keidan: Well, I’m glad you mentioned that. I was just about to draw people’s attention to it here that you’re convening the Business and Philanthropy Forum over at COP. And I’m sure Alliance and others will be interested in what is coming out of that. And you mentioned partnership and collaboration is really at the heart of the needs identified in today’s research. And thank you, Badr. We’ll come back to you in a bit. I want to bring in Rohini Nilekani now. Welcome, Rohini. A long-time and well-known figure in the world of philanthropy, chairperson of the Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies, an author of multiple books and a champion of both civil society and I’d like to say from Alliance perspective, a more progressive approach to philanthropy. So welcome, Rohini. Just make sure I can see you up on the screen. There you are. Hello. Thank you for joining.
0:24:49.6 Rohini Nilekani: Hello. Thank you so much, Charles. Thank you. And thanks to Badr for supporting the report and to all of my co-panelists.
0:24:57.1 Charles Keidan: So thank you, Rohini. And it’s, one of the things the research identifies is that data on philanthropy remains patchy. And I just wonder what that looks like from the point of view of, in India. I mean, what would be most helpful in terms of data for philanthropy in India and who should supply it and who should be paying for it?
0:25:17.4 Rohini Nilekani: Well, I definitely think it is an important question to ask about philanthropy in India, but I have seen just in the last 10, 15 years, a steady improvement in the data on philanthropy. It is being supported by philanthropy, obviously, because that seems to be the right place to seek the support. Philanthropists themselves need to know more, as Badr was also suggesting about the ecosystem of philanthropy in their regions and in their areas of influence. Some things that the [0:25:47.8] ____ Group has been doing together with Hurun to launch the philanthropy report every year, Bain and Dasra and others have been reporting is, have been putting out an annual report. So suddenly there is much more data than there used to be.
0:26:01.5 Rohini Nilekani: And the good news is when data comes out, even if it’s patchy in the beginning, clearly the need to make it much more solid, much more trustworthy, much more transparent, that need is growing. So I’m seeing more and more people ready in India to put out data on their own philanthropy, which is a first step, and then it’s more possible to do the analytics around where it is going. So I remain optimistic. I think the government can also help in this, in helping to put out more data, on helping philanthropists to put out more data on what’s happening in private giving. Because in India with almost 1.4 billion people, the need for private giving and collaboration with government is extremely high. So, I see positive trends in that data on philanthropy and the funding is coming from philanthropy itself.
0:27:02.7 Charles Keidan: That’s good to hear. And also in relation to those positive trends, in terms of the philanthropy infrastructure that can produce this data, but also can facilitate the collaborations you are referring to, how is the development of the infrastructure going in India? For example, there’s the India Family Philanthropy Network at Dasra, GivingPi, and there’s I think the Accelerate Indian Philanthropy Initiative that you are involved in. Are they two examples that just weren’t around five years ago that reflect some of these changes?
0:27:32.3 Rohini Nilekani: So there are four or five more coming up, and I think some are small, but the largest ones you have already mentioned. And I think that is exactly the right direction. And just to see the enthusiasm of families to join the GivingPi Network, actually it’s much higher than I had expected. AIP is moving at a rapid clip, which is accelerate Indian philanthropy. Even we had earlier put together the India Philanthropy Alliance, which is now coming, which has served its purpose to get a lot of philanthropists together, talking and sharing. There are a few more. Of course there are agencies from outside like Bridgespan that have very strong India offices that are helping philanthropists. And so that philanthropy ecosystem is growing too.
0:28:27.1 Charles Keidan: And of course, the Climate Collaborative, the India Climate Collaborative.
0:28:31.6 Rohini Nilekani: The India Climate Collaborative, which I’m very proud to be a part of, that is really getting a lot of interest in supporting climate philanthropy in India and beyond. So, and even apart from that, the Give Collaborative, which is, got a lot of philanthropists have come together, both from outside and within India to really build a capacity of 100 NGOs and the second and the third versions of that are now being imagined. So yeah, I think philanthropy is in a very exciting space in India. Much more collaboration, much more research, much more data, much more money for building out civil society ecosystems for more, just much deeper and much more systemic work on all the many problems [chuckle] we have in India.
0:29:19.8 Charles Keidan: And in your book, Rohini, you talk about anchoring your philanthropy in civil society.
0:29:25.0 Rohini Nilekani: Yes.
0:29:25.0 Charles Keidan: And that isn’t necessarily to the exclusion of working with government, but there are challenges in relation to, the relationship between certain parts of civil society and government. So as a philanthropist, how are you navigating that in India?
0:29:39.1 Rohini Nilekani: So my book Samaaj, Sarkaar, Bazaar: A Citizen First Approach, lays out sort of my manifesto of how I work in philanthropy. I do Samaaj first, which means civil society first, because I believe that when you have a very strong society, including a civil society, it is better equipped, especially with the moral readership that can be encouraged. It is better equipped to hold markets and the state accountable to the larger public interest. So I believe the more work philanthropy does on building out institutions of society and civil society, the more longer term bang you get for the buck when it comes to wider public interest. So that’s where I come from. But of course you cannot achieve anything effective without working with your governments.
0:30:26.2 Rohini Nilekani: And you have to work with your government, in our case, in a three tier government, local, state and national. And, everywhere in my philanthropy, we, after of course models are created, we very closely work with government wherever we can. And in my 30 years in this sector, I have not yet once found that government is unwilling to work with civil society organization, the power of whose intent is very clear, who are not trying to hog all the credit, who understand how government functions and how the mandate of governments work. And, I have had extremely positive collaborations across the board in all the sectors that I have been involved with. And it’s impossible to, as everyone knows, it’s impossible to achieve the scale without working with government. There are always champions everywhere.
0:31:22.6 Charles Keidan: Champions, and no doubt challenges that you are trying to overcome, but I’m…
[overlapping conversation]
0:31:27.7 Rohini Nilekani: [0:31:27.8] ____ challenges. Yes.
0:31:28.2 Charles Keidan: Well, turning to the relationship between philanthropy and government, we can bring in now Laurence Lien from Singapore. He’s the chair of the Lien Family Foundation and the co-founder of the Asia Philanthropy Circle. So a pioneer of trying to build philanthropy infrastructure. And I know Laurence, you’ve done work on trying to bridge and build collaboration between philanthropy and government in Singapore. Would you like to just begin by commenting on that point that Rohini was mentioning in the Indian context? How’s it looking in yours?
0:32:00.8 Laurence Lien: It’s always challenging. I mean, government is always the big elephant in the room in most parts of Asia. I run a circle, a network of philanthropists around the region called the Asia Philanthropy Circle. And I can, and I would say the membership is split. I’ve got half members who say, stay away from government as much as possible because they’re always bad news. When they meddle medal in your work you produce even, well, suboptimal outcomes because you have to listen to the way they want things to be done. And another group said, “We’ve got no choice, but we have to work with government.” I would say in Singapore because we have a very strong state, working collaboratively with government is still not a very common thing. I mean, the government perspective of civil society is that you are our hands and legs, we do the thinking for you. [chuckle]
0:33:04.9 Laurence Lien: And of course in a place like Singapore, people have a lot of trust, you know, in government and essentially government crowds out private initiative, which, I mean, I truly believe, aligned with Rohini that in the principle of subsidiarity, that decisions must be pushed to the lowest, as close to the citizen as possible. And even if the state is more efficient, you need to build the power of agency in people so that there’s a sense of ownership in the work. And this is even more critical because the problems that we face are more complex. And the government cannot do everything including the Singapore government. Where I’ve seen I guess the work collaboration is more the philanthropists and foundations being the innovator of, being the innovation capital, being the risk capital. Because even in Singapore, the government is not entrepreneurial. So, I mean, the Lien Foundation, my family foundation, that’s what we do. We focus on new models on things that are under the radar. I love the projects. You know, and we fund them and we show that it works, and then that’s when the government may come in to take over.
0:34:26.2 Charles Keidan: Well, and just building on that, I mean, the trend we identified earlier in relation to Singapore was this, I think 400% explosion in the growth of family offices and that, you know, family offices can bring that entrepreneurial drive, that innovation, that experimentation. So do you see, you know, yes, government may to an extent crowd out that private initiative, but do you actually see the kind of resurgence of private initiative alongside government? I mean, what does that statistic mean in practice in terms of family office and philanthropy in Singapore?
0:34:57.4 Laurence Lien: Well, Charles, potential doesn’t mean that it happens, right? You know, and there is a very… I mean, you talked about the explosion of family offices. I think Singapore is poised to be a philanthropy hub. We are the wealth management hub of Southeast Asia, if not the wider Asia. But I think too much philanthropy is too slow and too safe. The next generation, Badr talks about the next generation wanting to get going. The patriarchs are not letting them and the patriarchs are doing things, you know, I don’t want to paint all patriarchs and matriarchs the same, [chuckle] but there’s a tendency of first generation operators, I think the people on this call are accepted to fund charitable charity that is really downstream, and while, so the next gen will be old gen by the time they’re given the reins, and they won’t have the energy to do the work that they’re trying to do. So potential doesn’t mean that things are being carried out.
0:36:07.9 Laurence Lien: Today I’m very happy to announce that we launched the Asia Community Foundation. So as if I haven’t launched enough things, I launched another platform and the reason is this, the Asia Philanthropy Circle, it is always a small circle for I guess experienced philanthropists trying to grow the philanthropy. And we were very frustrated that they were not doing it at scale. And strategically, what Badr says, but what I’m seeing is that a lot of money is left on the table. People are not even giving, not because they don’t want to, it’s just because the philanthropy marketplace is so inefficient. It’s so difficult for people to find the right opportunities, the right organizations to fund. So we want to streamline that. We wanna make it more efficient to be the clearing house, to be the central point, to facilitate the exchange between givers and nonprofits. Streamline and standardize the giving ecosystem, whether it’s due diligence, grant agreements, reporting, and over time, set these as the, I mean, the longer term goal is that maybe by doing this privately, we can work with governments to set the standards for the region.
0:37:22.0 Charles Keidan: Yeah. And I really sense your frustration that things can be and should be better. In your own research at the Asian Philanthropy Circle on the future scenarios of Asian philanthropy, you said that there’s a heritage of Asian philanthropy that is long on generosity across generations, while short on positive social impact. And you really want, you call on Asian philanthropy to disrupt itself. And, you know, it is interesting you are launching the Asia Community Foundation next week, the Temasek Trust.
0:37:50.0 Laurence Lien: No, it’s today. We launched it today. [laughter]
0:37:52.1 Charles Keidan: Launched today, the Temasek Foundation with the Philanthropy Asia Alliance. So are you optimistic that there is disruption that is happening?
0:38:00.6 Laurence Lien: Well, I’m optimistic that, you know, there are enough people now talking about, saying this, the right things, [chuckle] and having that intent to disrupt, it is not yet happening. You know, Asians are very generous people, even look at the World Giving Index, which is not about strategic philanthropy, obviously, there are many Asian countries at the top, but it’s all mostly about charity and helping people get by, which is fine. But this is only, this doesn’t solve the long-term problems as we know. It doesn’t tackle problems, the root doesn’t address structural problems. And what we do need, you know, is to disrupt the system and create, and look… And so our future of Asia philanthropy exercise was aimed at doing that. Yes, that is scenarios, the creative stories that enhance our capacity to perceive and welcome change. But we have a set of recommendations that really encouraged philanthropists to drive change at the systems level and to working with governments, innovation, collaboration.
0:39:11.0 Charles Keidan: We’ll certainly keep our eyes on it. Let’s now move from Singapore to South Africa. Before we do, just to note that after we hear from Precious, we’ll be taking questions from all of you. We’re running until 3:15 UK time today, so we should have a good amount of time for questions of all of you. And please put them in Slido which is a tab at the bottom of your screen, and we’ll try to get to as many of them. But now, last but not least, I’m absolutely delighted to welcome Dr. Precious Moloi-Motsepe, the co-founder and CEO of the Motsepe Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic foundations or organizations in Africa, and the founder of Africa Fashion International, and currently chancellor of the University of Cape Town. So delighted to welcome you, Dr. Precious. Hello there. Check you can see and hear me okay. Yep, I can see you there. So just to kick off really, you’ve been listening into this conversation about developments in philanthropy and philanthropy infrastructure. Is there any unique flavor to African philanthropy that distinguishes itself? And there was a word of warning from Dr. Precious that there were maybe gonna be some technical challenges due to load shifts in South Africa. So if we can’t bring her on for any reason… We’ll try one more time. Otherwise, we’ll go to questions and then come back to Dr. Precious. But Precious, can you hear me now? Just need to put mute off.
0:40:51.8 Precious Moloi-Motsepe: I can hear you now, but I missed a lot of what you asked, could you just…
0:40:57.9 Charles Keidan: I just introduced you and also just asked how, whether you think there’s a distinctive flavor to the African philanthropy conversation?
0:41:05.8 Precious Moloi-Motsepe: Okay. Well, thank you very much and congratulations to Badr for this wonderful research that you’re launching today. I think it’s really fantastic and it’s very much needed. From Africa, and I really like what our colleagues said about Asian giving, philanthropy in Asia. That’s very much the story of African philanthropy. We base our giving, whether it’s charitable giving, and it doesn’t matter how much you are giving, on the concept of Ubuntu. And that means that my success is so intuitively intertwined with your success. We depend on each other. So giving on the African continent, and irrespective of the quantum is driven by this philosophy of Ubuntu. So just to get back to how we are giving within the foundation, we started off with charitable giving and we transitioned to strategic philanthropy when we joined the Giving Pledge, and that’s when we committed significant funding towards causes that we had identified as important and that are aligned with our mission. And our mission is really alleviation of poverty on the continent, contributing towards alleviation of poverty on the continent.
0:42:47.5 Precious Moloi-Motsepe: And I really like the way that Jafar, I mean, the research speaks about the newer ways of doing philanthropy. We have been around for quite a number of years. We’ve tested few ways of giving. We have failed in a lot of them, but in failing, we also learned how not to do it. For instance, we have identified regions that, you know, the poorest in South Africa. And by the way, although the foundation is located in South Africa, we work in South Africa on the African continent, and we work globally with partnerships. And I’ll speak briefly to the partnerships that we work with. So, we started off with partnering with communities. So when my colleagues talk about collaboration, that was a very important collaboration for us, community-driven philanthropy. And that meant we went to communities themselves to find out what their actual needs are. And then we responded in partnership with the communities, having appointed community leaders in various areas, and we worked very closely with them. The other important tool that we used, you know, I cannot agree more with the fact that government is such an important stakeholder and we find that we have partnership with governments in most of the areas that we work in, because government has the biggest resource, more than most of us as philanthropists could ever have. For instance, we work with schools throughout South Africa.
0:44:41.9 Precious Moloi-Motsepe: We drive education, we do infrastructure in schools, primary schools, we fund education in tertiary education, but we could not get into schools if we did not have the infrastructure that the government has created. All the children that we want to assist are in schools, and that’s the best place to find them. So the partnership with government for us has been very, very significant. It’s not easy, it’s challenging, but it’s about the other work of building relationships together with governments. Our focus areas, women and youth, youth particularly, 60% of our population is under 25. Important areas that we focus on is education and skills development, particularly digital skills. We want to take this youth population with us to the future of work.
0:45:45.0 Charles Keidan: If I could just come in here, just on that question of philanthropy and government, Dr. Precious, so I think you made a very powerful case for why there’s a need to work with government, but can we also just be interested in your views on the flip side of that, and that’s philanthropy working with business. So I know that you’re an advocate of blended value, where businesses also can contribute to social good as well as pursuing profit. Do you see that as just two sides of the same coin? Is that what you’re doing there, given your resources come from a family-owned business?
0:46:18.0 Precious Moloi-Motsepe: Absolutely, and that’s where I was leading into. Yes we started with family businesses, corporate social responsibility, which is important, but when we moved to create our own philanthropic organization and with funding, then we started collaborations with, and I’ll give you examples. We have a collaboration with other philanthropists, big business leaders, in looking at breakthrough energy ventures, where we fund innovative solutions towards challenges of energy on the continent and globally, and a lot of this comes into the continent. The other area that we’re working very closely with partners in business is around the issue of social entrepreneurship as well.
0:47:10.6 Precious Moloi-Motsepe: On the continent, social entrepreneurship is critically, critically important because it uses business principles, but has a very strong social motive. So, on the continent, the issue of social entrepreneurship impacts investing, for instance. That has become critically, critically important. Private funders are more and more looking at, we have people who look at, how do we improve the position or situation of women, empower women on the continent? How do we help with climate change? You correctly pointed out, I think, Jafar, you mentioned the issue of climate change, and with climate change, we’re not only looking at private sector, but also at government. You’ve seen how African leaders have been very vocal about how we use taxes globally to fund the climate crisis that we are seeing on the continent, and I think lastly, I want to mention an innovation around philanthropy that we have also a partnership with private sector on, and this is on prizes. So we have a multi-million, multi-year prize initiative where innovators, entrepreneurs can come up with solutions that address critical problems on the African continent. We did the first one around agriculture, and now we’re working on another one on energy.
0:48:48.7 Charles Keidan: Thank you. We will be interested to follow their development and cover the awardees, which I know is going to be an important focal point for all those prizes, but thank you for your contribution there, Precious. We’ll come back to you shortly, but I do want to move to Slido, encourage everyone who’s listening in to post questions, and start with a challenging one, actually, that’s been sent over by Helen Campbell Pickford, but seems to be quite popular, and that is to really ask you, and maybe we’ll start with you, Badr, interventions funded by philanthropists often influence public policy, or are designed to influence public policy. Do you see this influence as legitimate, and what checks and balances are needed to make sure the influence of the super wealthy is for the public good? So, maybe just put that question to you first, but then we welcome perspectives from the other panelists too.
0:49:45.1 Badr Jafar: I would say that advocacy is a very important tool that philanthropists can use to help shift the system. Of course, as I mentioned in my remarks, for me governance structures are what’s required to underpin both the quantum and also the quality of effective strategic philanthropy, and I believe if we do have these governance structures in place, then that would avoid some of the potential harmful effects of the flow of these large pools of capital. So I think it’s tied to what I said, if we have good governance in place, just like in the for-profit arena, if we have good, strong governance in place, and entities really understand the business case, if you will, behind those good governance structures, then we’ll see less and less of the potential, and in some cases even unintentional, destructive causes of the flow of these large pools of capital.
0:50:49.4 Charles Keidan: Thanks, Badr. Rohini.
0:50:50.9 Rohini Nilekani: Yeah. Well, I think it’s a fair question to ask about the power of money, and that, to me, it’s very important to keep that question on the table at all times. Having said that, private philanthropy I think is very important to provide the risk capital that the state of the markets cannot invest in for social innovation. But I would say this, that of course there has to be the media or research organizations or organizations like Alliance that are also keeping an eye on the power of money, which you do it admirably because of course there is going to be that question. To me it is about the power of intent behind that philanthropy. But I think also the grammar of that intent.
0:51:37.3 Rohini Nilekani: Is that philanthropy capital only coming just because one philanthropist believes in something? Or is the program designed through co-creation with other civil society organizations, academic institutions, is there enough feedback? Is the goal of that philanthropy at a systemic level going to distribute agency or narrow it? Is it going to be about diversity and about creating maybe a unified response to complex solutions, but certainly not a uniform one and so on and so forth? Is it going to be technology led or technology enabled? I think you can see that when private capital is being used for large systemic change. And for me, the most important test, smell test, if you will, is the big private philanthropy distributing the ability to solve? Or is it pushing some pet solution down the line? And I think there should be enough eyes on this, but I do believe in the power of intent of private philanthropy, but I also believe there must be counterbalances and checks to keep an eye on it, which is where to Badr’s point, that’s why we need much, much more transparent data on philanthropy and where money is going and what is it achieving.
0:52:58.4 Charles Keidan: And just to come in on that, Rohini, before we go to Laurence, who’s inspiring you in terms of actually distributing that power in the way you describe, as opposed to, let’s say, concentrating it or doing it in a more arbitrary way? Which is a… Some people may be inspired by your approach to philanthropy and some of the others here, but who’s actually do you think doing it really well?
0:53:23.4 Rohini Nilekani: So, I mean, this sounds a bit self-serving, but, [chuckle] working with my husband on large systemic issues in my country, which is where most of my philanthropy Is focused, I realized, though I’m not a techie, I realized how you could use technology to really be able to allow everybody to play a small role. And just, I’ll give you only one example, [0:53:51.8] ____ work with and for the union government of India to design the national teacher platform called DIKSHA, which has now grown into billions of transactions on the digital platform. But we realized that if you designed for scale of participation, then every teacher, many parents, many, many millions of students could be able to shape how that platform works. So we learned it partly from our work, but of course, there are many others around the world who have been doing, and many large international institutions that have worked on, I mean, we saw a lot in the pandemic, but even before that in say polio or many, it needed many moving parts to be able to be held, to work together in their local context, to create a large systems change in whatever thing we were trying to solve. So the Polio thing did, is one of the case studies that I think about when it comes to success of distributing the ability to solve in context.
0:55:00.1 Charles Keidan: Thank you. Laurence, who’s inspiring you, who’s distributing philanthropic power to solve problems well or add anything else in response to that question before we move on to some others?
0:55:10.9 Laurence Lien: Well, I take a lot of inspiration from my fellow Asia Philanthropy Circle members. And when we talk about influencing public policy, I think that the process of doing it matters, right? I think I agree with a little of what Rohini said. If you’re just driving your own private interest and doing it narrowly, now, that’s the wrong way to go. You want to have open conversations. And I just remember a dinner that we, just to give you an example, right, you know, we held a dinner with business leaders and government people, senators in the Philippines to talk about early childhood development because there seemed to be a sense of wanting to do more in government. And 9 months later, just two months ago, our member was leading that conversation, was invited to the Senate for a hearing. And two senators had introduced new bills to improve early childhood development. It came, the starting point was that dinner conversation that my circle convene. And we had presented the issues to the senator. So when something is… I mean, you want to make sure that many people are on board because our role is quite often to put the spotlight on issues to show contradictions. Note that we have these values, we have these priorities, but we are not living up to them. And…
0:57:01.1 Laurence Lien: And our policies do not reflect our aspirations. Those conversations should be quite easy to have when you talk about policy change. I think where it gets a lot more hairy and tricky is when you are trying to change values and priorities of the government and of the people. Sometimes that is absolutely legitimate because masses of people can be wrong, but sometimes we can be absolutely wrong ourselves. So that will be… I’ll pause on that a little bit and open…
0:57:33.2 Charles Keidan: Well, I’m glad you raised that. The next special feature of Alliance is looking at the intersection of philanthropy and politics and the interventions that philanthropists make across the political spectrum on that for better or worse, depending maybe on your point of view. So that is to come on the pages of Alliance. I’d like to bring in Dr. Precious now, this is a question from Mary Beth. Could you talk a bit more about social cohesion as a philanthropic objective? This seems to be a global, national and local need as hype-individualism grows across cultures. So is there something about philanthropy’s contribution to the common good that you see in your work, that wider sense, in its widest possible sense?
0:58:15.0 Precious Moloi-Motsepe: Sure. I’m sure we all know the history of South Africa. You know, that we come from an apartheid era, so there’s always been segregation according to race, religion, gender, it’s just been our history. And firstly, I’ll just go back in history. We’ve seen what people like Gandhi have done for South Africa, Mandela have done for South Africa, other philanthropic organizations in the West, what they have done to change the policies in South Africa. This was not really out of self-interest, it was really focused on applying pressure and changing our policies. I guess that speaks also to the power of money and influence on policies. But at a personal level, what we do as a foundation, we work with schools and these schools have always been segregated. You had white schools and schools for poorer black students. And we have competitions in sports like netball. And I can tell you it is the most beautiful thing to watch.
0:59:18.7 Precious Moloi-Motsepe: As you see these 12 year olds playing sports together, they disregard race. They don’t even, you know, it’s… They are so close and they work together towards the same goal. So one area we found very, very significant in social cohesion has been around sports. The other area is through religion. We work with all denominations, religious organizations, faith-based organizations in South Africa. And we… Of every year we have what we call the National Day of Prayer. And we convene at a stadium here that houses about 95,000 people, and it’s full to capacity and people are even outside the stadium. And we have prayers from the Jewish faith, to the Christian faith, to the Muslim faith. All these Christian leaders come up and they pray, and everybody is just united. It is also, again, a beautiful form of using religion for social cohesion.
1:00:36.1 Charles Keidan: That’s a… Yeah, well, that’s a very poignant example. So often some of the debate’s around faith-based giving and making it more strategic, but actually thinking about the unifying role that it can play in transcending some of the divides. That’s a very powerful example. Want to move back to the climate conversation. We have a question from… An interesting question from Metis Abarrack, and apologies if I’ve pronounced your name wrong. And you’ve said, how could the oil and gas sector work with strategic philanthropy on the climate challenge? And that’s actually an interesting pertinent question for you, Badr, because some of your family wealth comes from the oil and gas sector, and now you have this particular role at COP to address climate change. So presumably your answer would be, it can. So the question is, what are the best ways to do so? How do you see kind of oil and gas connecting to the climate philanthropy questions? You’re still muted, Badr.
1:01:42.8 Badr Jafar: Apologies. So it can and it must, Charles, and one of the key differentiators behind the COP28 process is that it’s an inclusive process geographically, sectorally involving all stakeholders and all partners. Now, I think we’ve been talking a lot on this discussion or in this discussion so far on individual philanthropy, but I think corporate philanthropy has an important role to play. And I do think that as, again, the infrastructure for philanthropy improves in many of these global growth markets, including in the Middle East and North Africa, and of course, other parts of the world, it will also help to enhance how businesses give. Now, I’m not talking about, I’m a huge proponent of how businesses need to fundamentally adapt their business models to align with societal and environmental needs. But I do also think that businesses can be philanthropic actors and actually have part of their retained earnings invested, if you will, through philanthropic intervention. And I don’t like, you know, some would refer to that as CSR, but I think it can be far more strategic than so-called traditional CSR. So all sectors have a role to play, and in particular when it comes to of course climate and nature protection, oil and gas sector obviously needs to play a very important role in that as well. And I’m hopeful that we will see some important announcements in the upcoming COP and of course in the months and years to come around that very point.
1:03:19.5 Charles Keidan: Thank you. Thank you. And we’re going to come on to a question about intermediaries. I’m just trying to locate it ’cause my screen is constantly moving. But there’s a question about the role of intermediaries and as re-grantors. I’m just trying to find it. Bear with me. Yes. It’s from Andrew Rodericks. Global philanthropies have attempted to achieve scale and reach by granting through intermediaries. Given the complexities of issues and importance of collaboration, do you anticipate a trend for global philanthropy to shift to granting through platforms and Alliances rather than through individuals and projects? Which of you would like to address that point? Just jump in.
1:04:05.5 Rohini Nilekani: I could make a very small point that, for example, our participation and Co-Impact, for example, suggests to me that philanthropists are beginning to see merit. There are at least five great such platforms for collaborative international giving. And I’m seeing more philanthropists interested to know how to give through those platforms, because there are many, many advantages to doing so. And possibly that’s easier than giving directly or to smaller organizations. So I’m very hopeful about global collaboratives such as Co-Impact, Blue Meridian, et cetera, et cetera.
1:04:51.2 Charles Keidan: Laurence.
1:04:51.3 Laurence Lien: Yeah, of course, what I’ve been… What I’m launching, the Asia Community Foundation is an intermediary. And I think the benefits for donors is that you get to assess smaller, local community based organizations that are often not on the radar. We also save the nonprofits, particularly these small ones, a lot of work by aggregating funding so that they are not doing due diligence 10 times for 10 different funders and 10 different grant agreements and 10 different reporting templates and cycles. So I think on both sides, both donors and recipients will win.
1:05:34.9 Charles Keidan: And just sticking with you, Laurence, there is a related comment in question from Neelam here, which says CSOs working directly with communities, rural areas are often left out of the attention of major philanthropy. But these are the ones who have decoded complex solutions that work with the ultra unprivileged. How do we make philanthropy more hyperlocal and accessible to these folks? And maybe that also relates to that question, that comment that Rohini was making about distributing power. So, Laurence, maybe just, yeah, build on that question.
1:06:09.5 Laurence Lien: Yes, I mean, so that’s part of finding these opportunities for donors based in Singapore, or even outside Singapore. But we also need to work with partners on the ground because we won’t… We ourselves will not be able to access some of these these opportunities. So if there are partners on the ground, I think that what is frustrating is that quite often, even when we look at countries around us, these organizations are not even funded by philanthropists within their own country because local philanthropists run operating foundations because of such a high level of distrust. So I think we do need to get more funding, local people giving locally and building all these more community based intermediaries on the ground to find these opportunities, but also to build capacity in some of these organizations, too, so that they can receive more grants.
1:07:15.6 Charles Keidan: Thank you. I can see Rohini nodding there. Do you want to just briefly comment on that?
1:07:19.2 Rohini Nilekani: Just a very quick thing. This is a good question. In India, there are thousands of small NGOs doing very relevant local work who cannot get access to capital. So some of the work that we are helping is to get them to tell their story better. Today you have, and this is the point of your report, right? How do you use technology to enhance the ability both of civil society organizations and philanthropists to be more effective? So some of the things is they need help. They also need shared services, financial services, legal services, compliance services. Otherwise they’re simply not able to raise their head above water. So I think philanthropy needs to focus on creating that sort of help for small organization who do such powerfully important local work. And in the context of climate and disaster, but I hope there won’t be any, but there will be, to help them to do a rapid response. So to create those trust networks on the ground, I think philanthropy needs to step up to make that happen.
1:08:24.4 Charles Keidan: Badr, you want to come in here? Please go ahead.
1:08:26.4 Badr Jafar: Just to highlight I think the crucial role that media plays and needs to play in helping to build this trust that we’ve just been hearing about. I think particularly in many of these markets that this report discusses, media or philanthropy media is still at a very nascent stage. And so it can and really should and I hope will help to play a more significant role in helping to showcase these champions that Rohini was just talking about. And really highlighting best practices, examples, but also what hasn’t worked. And I think when media and journalism works well, it’s able to move the needle in the right direction. And as you know, this underpins some of the work that we’re doing, Charles, helping to encourage more philanthropy journalists in these markets to go out there and to build these stories and to disseminate this knowledge and information in a real time way.
1:09:38.3 Charles Keidan: Yeah, and I agree with you there, journalism can really tell the story of philanthropy, but also be a critical friend to the field. That’s certainly what we and others are trying to do. Precious, let me bring you in. I have a specific question for you. But come in on this one first.
1:09:55.4 Precious Moloi-Motsepe: Can I just… Yes, yes, I wanted to say that, you know, coming from a corporate sector, we know that most of the projects that you do, you fund the marketing thereof. This is no different in philanthropy, we’ve found that the work that we do, we have to allocate a small budget to ensure that we can get word out there, we can engage people. Otherwise the education that you talk about does not necessarily happen and journalists will not come to cover the work if you haven’t actively… Without, you know, I know marketing is an ugly word, but there needs to be a way of communicating about the work and engaging and educating the public, government and civil society as well.
1:10:43.2 Charles Keidan: And we’d love to talk more about philanthropy and its relationship with journalism. But there’s a question here from Ben Reimer who’s coming back to the question you were talking a lot about Dr. Precious, which is that we know that many governments have little or limited capacity focused on philanthropy. So what are your suggestions of places to start to build government’s capacity to engage with philanthropy? And we’ve only got time just for some final closing reflections from you, Precious, and then I’ll have to wrap up, I’m afraid. So go ahead.
1:11:22.0 Precious Moloi-Motsepe: Sorry, Charles. Is that for me?
1:11:23.6 Charles Keidan: Yes. A question for you. Government… How to build government capacity to engage with philanthropy?
1:11:29.9 Precious Moloi-Motsepe: Oh, okay. So, we found what works is to, as I said, build relationships with specific government departments, particularly in the areas of philanthropy that we work with in, we work with in Education, minister of Education, in Sports the same way, in certain instances we’ve found that allocating resources to help those departments in order to help the work that we are trying to do has also been quite helpful. We have published work, for instance, we’ve worked with… We published gender responsive budgeting initiative, which looks at government departments, their policies, and how they allocate funds towards the project that they want to do. And then we show government that this is the way to do things and then work with them to ensure that they can then roll that out. So there’s various ways that we think working with government, first showing them the proof that this is what needs to happen. Maybe helping with resourcing, insourcing and ensuring that they have the capacity, somebody who can teach various government departments about the work that you’re trying to achieve. And then of course, just building those relationships and inviting them into our organizations, being transparent, being open about what we do, and so we have that relationship.
1:13:05.3 Charles Keidan: Thank you. That’s a fascinating note to end the conversation on. Finally, there is one question that’s been very popular and that is maybe a question for Badr and myself to reflect on. And that is, why this report doesn’t include the coverage of Latin America and what does that mean for the Latin American philanthropists? And maybe that is a good question. It’s a fair comment. And I think this is a series, so there may be, that we can bring Latin America much more squarely into the conversation. It’s certainly something we’re very mindful of here at Alliance, and I’m sure you are too on the panel. But that’s all we have time for. The 75 Minutes has really raced by. I’d like to thank everyone that’s joined. We hope you enjoyed the discussion and if you found it helpful and engaging, don’t forget to subscribe to Alliance with the discount code FUTURE30. And don’t worry if you missed the offer during our event today. We’ll be sending out emails to you shortly with a discount to get you started and a recording of the event to everyone who registered.
1:14:01.5 Charles Keidan: But I’d like to just end by saying a big thank you to our panelists Badr Jafar, Rohini Nilekani, Dr. Precious Moloi-Motsepe and Laurence Lien for your contributions today. And also a special thank you to Badr Jafar, Nita Manek and his office for all your partnership, not just on this report, but also our work with our regional representatives that are working around the world to increase our networks, insights and sources to tell a truly global story of what’s happening in philanthropy or at least aspire to.
1:14:34.2 Charles Keidan: Thanks in the background to Amy McGoldrick and Zibran Choudhary for both producing and covering today’s event and ensuring everything runs smoothly. Thanks to all of you for being part of Alliance’s community of critical friends and practitioners. Our next webinar looks at Philanthropy’s contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals, the centerpiece of our new issue. And that webinar is on the 19th of September. So do sign up today. You can sign up on the events page of our website. As I say, we’re striving to make Alliance the place to be for what’s happening in philanthropy everywhere, and it’s really great to have you on that journey with us. Thank you for joining us and see you next time. Bye for now.
1:15:12.9 Laurence Lien: Thanks, Charles, for your great moderating.
1:15:16.3 Rohini Nilekani: Thank you very much. Thank you. Namaste, everyone.
1:15:18.9 Laurence Lien: Thank you. 1:15:19.5 Badr Jafar: Goodbye.
