The Scottish Parliament’s Festival of Politics discussed the politics of giving as a new breed of philanthropists has emerged.
At the start of the session, Lenka Setkova, the director of the Democracy and Civil Society Programme, Carnegie UK Trust said she’s been involved in both old and new philanthropy, and it was the difference between these two – what the discussion called the global foundations and the philanthocapitalists - that was the debate’s main subject.
Setkova outlined that high net worth individuals – those who hold more than £1m in assets - are giving away, on average, five per cent of their net assets. They are more likely to have earned their wealth than inherited it, she added.
Mike Edwards, director of the Governance & Civil Society Unit at the Ford Foundation outlined his view that the key questions facing philanthropy are political questions – questions about whether philanthropy maintains or challenges the status quo, and about how philanthropists are held accountable for their decisions, given their increasing impact.
On a deeper level, he asked whether we want to simply get bigger crumbs from the rich man’s table, or can there be a process of democratisation of philanthropy. These are tough questions, he said, that many philanthropists don’t like being asked. Edwards said you could see a counter reaction in the next few years against the new philanthropy, dependent on whether it achieves the things that it set out to do. Another issue is whether philanthropy is willing to place itself up for greater public scrutiny. He said he was not suggesting total government regulation, but added that they do have responsibilities to be transparent in what they do. Do we want a board, including three family members, to asset the world HIV/Aids policy, he asked. It may be private money, he said, but how it’s spent is a matter of public interest, because it will touch us all, and also because of the tax breaks that philanthropy attracts.
Sigrid Rausing, philanthropist and founder of the Sigrid Rausing Trust, said that some of the new philanthropists position themselves in opposition to development aid. However, she said there is no single philanthropic viewpoint or line - they are people who have money and who feel a sense of social responsibility. She warned against a management speak style of analysis which would move money from external projects to internal research, on reports that will gather dust in offices up and down the country.
Edwards said that the rest of us are not simply sitting passively on the sidelines of civil society. He said there’s no way a few individuals can determine what’s in the public interest, it has to be the public that decides what’s good for itself, which is why he called for an accountable mechanism and for a public debate.
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