Welcome to the December 2012 issue of the Factary Phi Newsletter.
Tag: fundraising research
Islamic philanthropy
The World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists have announced a conference in New York on 2nd November, part sponsored by the Save the Children Fund, to discuss Muslim philanthropy and the Millennium Development Goals. At Factary we have been increasingly interested in Muslim or Islamic philanthropy, and have been involved in a number of studies and reviews in the area.
Bookmarks
I have just restarted using Delicious to record my bookmarks. A selection is available here.
Fifty percent of the population -five percent of the money
The US Foundation Center and Mama Cash, the Netherlands-based women’s fund have published a report on European foundation giving for women and girls (Untapped Potential: European Foundation Funding for Women and Girls, EFC and Mama Cash, Brussels 2011, available at http://www.mamacash.org/page.php?id=2788).
Methods
145 foundations from 19 countries took part in the survey (136 responded to the questionnaire), controlling an estimated €9.2 billion in assets. The research team describe the study as ‘exploratory’, citing the lack of overall market data on which to base sector-wide conclusions. The team used a mixture of questionnaire, grants sampling and analysis and interviews to gather their data.
Women and Girls
The report starts with the assertion that investing in women and girls is now the mainstream mode for NGOs and other development funders. It cites The Economist, 26 April 2006: Forget China, India and the Internet: economic growth is driven by women. And then it poses the question:
are European foundations providing funding for women and girls?
The answer is a depressing ‘no’. The median percentage of total foundation grant monies allocated for women and girls is only 4.8%. Fifty percent of the population get 5% of the money.
By contrast 90% of the foundations surveyed said that they were interested in at least one aspect of grant-making for women and girls. But that is a big gap between aspiration and reality, with most foundations allocating less than 10% of their grants to women and girls. The survey reports similar findings in analyses of foundation grant-making in the USA – a surprising result given the substantial number of women-led foundations in the US.
Issues
Violence against women, poverty among women and girls, and women’s and girls’ access to education emerged as the top three issues of interest to European foundations. While other issues were of less interest (lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights, and women’s and girls’ access to media, for example) the differences between the most popular and least popular topics was relatively small. In other words, foundations that support women and girls cover a wide range of interests. The authors then go on to measure the degree to which these interests are intentional, forming part of the DNA of the foundation. They found that 19% of foundations mentioned women and girls in their mission statement, and that these foundations had a tendency to support human rights and social justice initiatives.
The foundations that have been successful in supporting women and girls have taken a proactive stance on the subject, recruiting leadership who understand the importance of giving to women and girls, organising training programmes for staff, offering a flexible approach to grant-making and a focus on data and impacts.
The Wider Picture
The survey, one of very few broad surveys of European foundations, is useful also for the wider picture it paints of the sector. This type of overview data is vital in helping philanthropists and foundations to build strategies for partnership. The survey points out, for example, that the giving of 34% of foundations is internationally focused, and describes the link between geographic location and the grant-making patterns of foundations, with Northern European foundations less likely to support work with women and girls than those in Southern Europe. This seems counter-intuitive, but the authors reason that it may be the result of the stronger social policies favouring women and girls in Nordic countries, leaving foundations with less to do.
Grant-Making Patterns
The research team have done a good job of analysing grant-making patterns by geography, by target group and by foundation size. They show, for example, that the most favoured target group for foundations in Europe is children and youth, followed by the poor, people with disabilities and the elderly. Women and girls come 5th in the list of priorities.
In their analysis of the grants, the researchers have had to rely on relatively few grants � 396 grants for women and girls are analysed, with 306 of these made by foundations in Western Europe, principally, we suspect, grant-making trusts in the UK. So the findings have to be viewed with care. 45% of these grants go to human service projects, and 21% to human rights. 8% of grants went to health, and to arts and culture. Education got just 4% of the grants to women and girls (despite education being a priority for 73% of the foundations in the study.) An analysis of grants by value is not given.
Profiles
Five foundations are studied in detail including the Sigrid Rausing Trust in the UK, the Oak Foundation in Switzerland and the King Baudouin Foundation in Belgium, along with one network of foundations, the Learning Bridges Initiative. The review looks at the decision making processes of the foundation in detail, and we can see the results of the interviews in these detailed descriptions.
Conclusions
The authors conclude on a positive note, looking at opportunities to expand and deepen foundation support for women. Frankly, with the median percentage of foundation funding for women and girls at 4.8%, it is hard to argue for anything but growth.
We are concerned with a couple of omissions. First, the research is focused on grants – which leaves us wondering about other forms of finance for women and girls. Microfinance is not analysed, and yet we know that many microcredit programmes are aimed at women. This is a gap that could be covered by future research.
Second, the geographic distribution of the foundations selected for the study means that foundations from all across Europe were surveyed. But there is a caveat – 36 of the 136 respondents were from the UK whereas only two each were from France or Spain, so the overall views expressed will be a bit more Anglo-Saxon than might be desired.
But these are minor criticisms of a well-constructed study relevant to the whole foundation sector in Europe. Weisblatt & associates have done a good job of the research, and we should be thankful to Mama Cash and the Foundation Center for taking the initiative.
What are the practical applications of this study? For philanthropists, it’s a call to action – to link their interest in funding programmes for women and girls to their grant programmes, and to put more money into these programmes. For foundations, it’s a thoughtful picture of where we are, a report that should encourage some reflection. For fundraising organisations it’s a useful guide to the current foundation market, its interests, its current practices and its potential.
Data, re-valued
LevelBusiness is a new website that contains copies of the accounts of the 2.4 million companies registered with Companies House. It is free to access and includes simple, clear, easy-to-use search and tracking tools.
It contains, in other words, the same data that we would normally pay Companies House to see. More tellingly, it contains the same data that Bureau van Dijk and ICC offer, at purchase prices ranging from a few pounds to thousands of pounds per annum.
LevelBusiness form part of the shift from data itself as a business asset to data manipulation, data sharing, and leadership in data discovery as the assets.
A few nonprofits are moving in this direction too, using their knowledge of a humanitarian emergency or an environmental disaster to create stories that supporters can follow (for example, MSF). Or to provide useful summary information on a specific situation or condition (for example Drugs for Neglected Diseases)
But there is a long tail of organisations in Europe who could develop valuable data tools building on what they know from their work on the street or in the field. LevelBusiness is showing us why; it is data manipulation, data sharing and leadership in data that counts.
Trust Fundraising
A new edition of Trust Fundraising has just been published by the Directory of Social Change including a (very) revised chapter by me, Chris, on trusts as funding partners.
In the new edition, I have emphasised partnership between trusts and nonprofits, talked about the growth of the sector (using data from Factary’s New Trust Update publication) and touched on Venture Philanthropy. I discuss (briefly – it’s only 8 pages long!) the trend toward individuals structuring their philanthropy.
The book includes research, perspectives, advice on relationships with trusts and material on foundations in the USA. At £24.95, it’s a bargain.
Cross-border giving, and a new tax ruling
There is good news for donors who want to make gifts across borders in the EU. The European Court of Justice, in a judgement dated 27th January 2009 has found in favour of a German citizen who wanted to make a gift to a Portuguese charity. Mr Hein Persche wanted to make a gift in kind valued at about €18,180, to the Centro Popular da Lagoa, in Portugal (a retirement home to which a children’s home is attached). The Finanzamt (District Tax Office) refused the deduction sought on the grounds that the beneficiary of the gift was not established in Germany and that Mr Persche had not provided a donation certificate in proper form.
The Court ruled that such gifts come within the compass of the Treaty provisions on the free movement of capital, even if they are made in kind in the form of everyday consumer goods. The free movement of capital precludes legislation of a Member State by virtue of which, as regards gifts made to bodies recognised as having charitable status, the benefit of a deduction for tax purposes is allowed only in respect of gifts made to bodies established in that Member State.
The ruling means that if the German government, and presumably other national governments, do not change their national laws, the European Commission could bring an action for breach of Community law and, eventually, that Germany could be fined for this breach.
For the press release on the ruling, click here.
For the original ruling, click here
For the European Court of Justice home page click here.
For contact details of the Centre Popular da Lagoa, click here.
This is an important ruling for all philanthropists who wish to give cross-border, and for fundraising organisations who are working with donors outside their own country.